Perfect Day
by xX-Misty
Summary: Sequel to Things Can Only Get Better; In the aftermath of a bomb blast at Fenchurch East there are the walking wounded, the casualties and the dead, but it's those who are unaccounted for who have the darkest time ahead of them.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

At first it felt like a very localised earthquake.

Or maybe that Gene had eaten too much curry the night before.

But the din of the blast and the sound of alarms going off through the building showed that there was something far worse to worry about than a small blip in the Richter scale or the state of Gene's toilet in the morning.

In the first instance Gene and Alex turned to one another as though pre-programmed to carry out that movement _in case of emergency._ Alex's eyes were wide and worried; Gene's more confused and disorientated. The ground was still shaking and there were cries sounding from around them. It had been just moments since Gene marked the date of the wedding on the calendar and had just dismissed his team for the night. Most were walking towards the door as the floor began to shake below them and the massive boom stung their ears.

Although deep inside she already knew what was happening there was a part of Alex that didn't want to believe it and searched desperately for an alternative answer.

"Gene," she breathed, her voice barely audible above the din, "what was that?"

Gene knew the truth every bit as clearly as Alex.

"Either that canteen woman's fallen on 'er backside and knocked the foundations out," he began, "or someone else has been visiting Mister Maile's website." He turned to the slightly panicked masses, including Terry who was running around and gathering up his water balloons in an attempt to put out any resulting fires. "Good to see the earth moved for the lot of you but I recommend an exit faster than John Major's from ten Downing Street, boys and girls," he said, waving people toward the exit.

His words masked the terror of not knowing _exactly_ what they were dealing with. It wouldn't be the first time that a blast had taken chunks from his station. Walls he could deal with losing. It was the beating hearts that he feared for.

~xXx~

Keats wanted to make a joke about threesomes but his sense of humour was not all that brilliant and besides, there was no one around to hear it. But the three devices _had_ been a stroke of genius, he didn't mind saying. Each were fairly small and caused limited damage but targeting three areas simultaneously caused pure chaos that he was watching with glee.

Screaming, crying, people running. The initial bang from the blast and the brightest flashes that burst forth from the building. The beginning of the flames that licked from one of the devices, smoke pouring from another and bricks and glass crumbling at the third.

In terms of recovering from it in a physical sense, the station was pretty much fucked.

When it came to a _personal_ sense, well, that remained to be seen.

With a smug smile he heard the sound of wailing sirens; fire crews and paramedics arriving at the scene. _Excellent. More chaos_. More wandering individuals to distract from the man in the long, dark coat and the spectacles, walking through the crowd.

His eyes turned to one side where from the crumbling doorway he could just see what appeared to be a dog. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes in case he was seeing things but no, it was _definitely_ a dog. Just behind the canine he could make out the shape of a man pushing the dog away from the danger before heading back into the building for another

"Some people have got a bloody death wish," he muttered as he opened the door of the car and stepped outside. He adjusted his suit, stared right ahead and braced himself.

The hard work was over. Now the fun began.

~xXx~

How long does it take for a world to change?

How long does it take to turn reality on its head?

Apparently not as long as you'd think.

"_Apparently,"_ whispered Kim as she stared at the desk, _"it takes five hours."_

She slowly lifted the name bar and her stomach sank. It wasn't as though she did not know what she was getting into but now that the storm had calmed reality was biting hard.

All that she had been through in the last few hours played through her head like a horror movie on repeat but it was the look on his face as she'd turned and walked away that slowly killed her inside.

One tear escaped from the corner of her eye and ran al the way down her cheek until it fell onto the naMe bar in her hands.

"_I had to do it,"_ she whispered_, "it was for the best."_

So why did she feel like her heart had been ripped from her chest and thrown into the flames?

_**~xXx~**_

_**A/N: This is the sequel to Things Can Only Get Better, following directly from the final chapter. This is only intended to be a shortish story, I don't see it being more than about 10 chapters (I've said that before though :P) and it will be unapologetically dark. The rating will rise to M halfway through. If you find this one too dark then I'll give a recap of events in this story at the start of the next. But do you know what? I like dark. So I'm looking forward to this! If you need some fluff to balance it out I have the yucky, puke-inducing Kim fluff challenge on Fictionpress :P The link is on my profile or PM me for it.**_

_**Disclaimers, blah blah, don't own A2A, nor do I own a heart, apparently, if my plot outline is anything to go by**_

_**I'm dedicating this fic to Rant on account of the fact that someone has to keep the torture going!**_


	2. Chapter 1: Of Dust and Fire

**Chapter One**

Gene stretched his hand out behind him and Alex grasped it instinctively. He couldn't turn to look at her but he felt her squeezing his fingers which gave him a sense of reassurance. He moved grimly forward through the corridor, his eyes scanning the chaos and his ears starting to hurt from the fire and motion alarms that relentlessly screamed out their warning.

There was a strange smell in the air. He couldn't see smoke but something seemed to be burning. The floor shook lightly beneath them as something shifted around the building. He felt Alex squeezing his hand a little tighter. She probably thought that he'd extended his hand for her benefit, he though to himself. The truth was, _he_ needed that security too.

"_You can't get down that way!"_

Gene was surprised by the flapping hands of a random officer on the stairwell.

"You trying to take off or something?" he spoke without even realising it. He knew the comment sounded flippant under the circumstances but it just slipped out. He watched the man making grand gestures to one side with his hands.

"You'll have to carry on along this way," he cried over the din of the bells, "and head down to one of the other exits. But don't go to the furthest staircase because there's another one there."

Gene swallowed.

"Another what?" he asked dryly.

"Another explosion."

Gene turned around and caught Alex's eye, reading the same fear in her expression that he was trying desperately to block out of his own. Up until that point they had both been clinging on to the vague hope that they were mistaken in their assumptions; that they had jumped to the wrong conclusion and it had been perhaps a gas leak or some such fault that caused it, but with the news of a second blast it seemed that possibility was vanishing as fast as the memory of the election night.

"Right," he grunted as he began to move through the corridor, clinging to Alex's hand so that they wouldn't be separated in the bustle. He glanced to one side as a figure pushed through the crowd to walk alongside them.

"It's not the first time something's blown up here." It was Simon, his black eye throbbing as he walked with anxiety through the corridor, "Remember Nailer?"

Gene grunted again. He _did_ remember Nailer. It was only a couple of days after Simon had died that the device meant to destroy evidence against the drug dealer destroyed a chunk of Fenchurch East as well.

"You saying you think he enjoyed the job so much the first time he's come back to finish resculpting me station?" he asked as they turned to head down a staircase.

"No, I doubt it," said Simon, "he's off somewhere hot and sunny, living the life of luxury with Keats's old DI if reports from Interpol are to be believed."

Gene nodded as he concentrated on staying upright as others began to panic, push and jostle down the staircase. He hadn't really thought that Nailer could be involved. It wasn't his style. The other blast had been an accident, exploding evidence that they'd happened to seize too soon.

"Can't be Layton," he said, "not unless they've given him a _build yer own fun bomb _kit to pass the time while he's waiting for his trial."

The farther they made it down the staircase, the dustier the air seemed to be. At first they assumed it was smoke but it didn't smell like it, Something had crumbled… crumbled, or was in the process of crumbling. It became harder to see as dust and smoke mixed together. The last of the emergency lighting went out just as they were heading for the doors and they tumbled out into the night air, gasping and spluttering as the dust choked them.

It was only once they'd left the building that they could finally take a look at the full damage that had occurred and begin to get a grasp on what had happened. Fire, smoke, dust, debris – the damage had been clearly caused in three independent places. A man screamed as he ran by, his clothes alight until someone pushed him to the floor, screaming at him to roll. There were screams and shouts, alarms and sirens. Blue lights flashes and shone and spun, reflected from the windows that remained in a building that was fast fading away before them.

"Gene," Alex gripped his arm to give him comfort as much as to receive it. As she stared at his face she saw him looking stricken. The station was like a living, breathing piece of his own family to Gene. He had invested almost two decades of his life into that place. He had helped to guide detectives and officers through their seconds lives, helped them to find their place, chased the scum that kept them in business, taken absolute pride in each and every collar he'd achieved in that time.

Fenchurch East was more than bricks and mortar. It was more than a place of work. It was a metaphor for the world and everything within it.

"There she blows," his tone was quiet, surprisingly subdued for Gene. Alex stared at the crumbling, burning building then turned back to him. The look on his face was painful to see. He looked as though he was watching a close relative taking their dying breaths. Grasping his arm and squeezing it tightly she told him,

"It will rebuild Gene, you know it will. _We'll_ rebuild."

"What bastard arseheads would shove a firework up me station's arse on a night like tonight?" Gene barely heard Alex's promises.

Alex looked at him worriedly.

"You don't think this is connected with Mister Maile, do you, Gene?" she asked.

Gene shrugged, then sighed and shook his head.

"Nah," he said, "I think our friend Mister Maile ran out of support pretty quickly when his students got wind of his hidden double life as a webmaster."

Simon was too horrified by the sight of the building to even realise that Gene had used the word 'webmaster'.

"What the fuck do we do now, Gene?" he cried, shielding his eyes as more fire began to illuminate the scene.

"We stand well back and hope that no one comes out of there in ashes," Gene said stoically.

"But your station… CID… your _world_…"

"Listen," Gene addressed Simon defiantly, "we've been levelled before. Builders. Bricks. Glass. We'll get in a few of those and be back on our feet before you can say _giant loofahs."_

Simon folded his arms, feeling more disturbed by the inference than by the flame.

"Miss out a few months, you mean?" he asked with a shudder.

It was a possibility, Gene wasn't going to deny that.

"Right now, Simon," he began, pulling his flask from his pocket, "I wouldn't set anything in stone."

As Gene swigged from his flask, trying desperately to find some comfort in the one thing he'd always relied on, someone emerged dusty and singed from the building.

"That's Jake," Alex squinted at the man stumbling towards them.

She approached him quickly as he gagged horribly and choked his way across the car park.

"Ma'am," he spluttered, "are you OK?"

"Never mind me, what about _you?"_ she stepped back a little as another wave of hacking and spluttering drove her concern up a gear. He managed to spit out a dusty ball of phlegm and began to feel just a little better as he looked at her.

"What the hell is happening?" he cried. He turned back and saw for the first time that there was more than one location of damage.

"It looks as though someone has been going for the Leila experience," Alex said quietly.

"Ma'am, you're shaking," Jake stepped forward and started reaching for her arm to take a pulse.

"I'm fine, I don't need that," Alex dismissed it.

"I'm the first aider, it's my job!" Jake reminded her.

"I don't _need_ first aid, I need to borrow Gene's _flask_," Alex told him. She frowned at the sight of half of Jake's torso on display. "Why is your shirt undone anyway?"

Jake froze for a moment and looked down in horror. He hadn't even realised he was still half-exposed she felt his cheeks burning as he quickly said.

"The… buttons got blown open in the blast." He tried to fasten then again but his own hands were trembling too much to manage and after making a few attempts at doing them up he had to give up and leave them open, "_Damn this!"_

"Weren't you with Robin?" Alex asked.

Jake swallowed.

"What are you implying?" he cried.

Alex was oblivious to the implication.

"Where is he? I can't see him." She began to feel concerned.

"_Ohh…"_ Jake closed his eyes for a second, "No, ma'am, he wasn't with me, I finished treating his wounds and –" he hesitated for a moment, "there was an emergency… he had to go…"

Alex turned around and tried to scan the scene. There was a strange feeling nagging at her. something that didn't feel right. But with people running about all over the place and fire crews setting up around them she couldn't locate Robin, nor the source if her anxiety.

~xXx~

Robin covered his mouth and nose with his sleeve as he opened another compound and pulled the dog from within. The flames and the smoke were coming closer now, curling through the canine division like a dragon's tongue. He dragged the dog by its collar as it whimpered and wailed, wanting to keep away from the flame.

"I know, I know," he mumbled into his arm as he managed to get the dog from the building and push him into the air. The dog didn't need any further instruction and started to run, barking all the time, until it felt safer away from the fire, smoke and dust.

There was still one more; one more dog locked away. Robin couldn't leave it there, he just couldn't. He knew how badly it hurt when Cassandra died. He couldn't let an innocent dig burn to death in the fire.

He gulped for air, taking in a few very deep breaths before he held one, covered his mouth again and dived back into the building. _One more dog, then run to safety_., That was all.

He grasped for the lock on the compound and found it was starting to heat up slightly. The flame was perilously close now and the smoke was making it impossible to see. He gagged and choked on the thick, acrid smoke as he fumbled at the lock, his hands refusing to do as he told them until finally he managed to open it and the cage door swung towards him,

The dog leapt out and began to bark, running towards the doorway. Robin managed to grasp its collar and helped to guide him through the doorway, along the blackening corridor and out into the air where the dog howled and ran wildly around the car park while Robin dropped to his knees gasping for air. A smile spread across his face despite the burning of his lungs and his eyes, not to mention his stinging skin. He'd managed to save them, every last one the dogs were safe, and now that he was out in the open and away from the flame so was he.

He saw a pair of feet arrive in front of him with green paramedic trousers leading up from them. So tried, Robin could barely lift his head to see beyond the man's knees, but he didn't need to. The paramedic would surely help him out, check him over and then he would be just fine.

"_It bodes well,"_ a familiar voice sneered down to him, _"that you seem to like spending time amongst the fire and the flames."_

_That voice_.

He knew that voice.

The bottom dropped from his stomach as the same happened to his world.

His eyes rose and caught sight of a pair of spectacles before something heavy and blunt struck him over the head and knocked him clean unconscious.

_**~xXx~**_

_**A/N: I'm sorry that the next update has taken a couple of days and also sorry I've been generally quiet for a few days too. I've been busy and sick and a bit depressed. Hopefully the next chapter will be up tomorrow though.**_


	3. Chapter 2: Of Burns and Breath

_**A/N: Tissue warning!**_

**Chapter Two**

Marci knew she was alive because there wouldn't be fire alarms in heaven, especially not ones that were ringing _that_ loudly. She opened her eyes and tried to move but as she began to prop herself up a searing pain ran through her arm and she gave an agonised howl. She'd landed on it heavily as she'd dropped to the ground, both from Eddie's forceful shove and the strength of the blast.

There was a horrible, choking smell in the air and she coughed a few timed before she realised that it was smoke. _Shit_, she could hear flames nearby too. What the fuck was going on? The memory of the loudest bang she'd ever heard in her life came back to her and in a terrible panic her eyes opened wide. There was a dreadfully heavy feeling in her chest as she cried out,

"_Eddie!"_

She spun around and turned to the doorway of the interview room where just a short time ago her lips had been locked onto Eddie's before bright red neon numbers caught his attention and he thrust her out of the room. Smoke poured from where he remained. There was little fire but the heat was still too much to take for long and the laden air made her cough and splutter.

"_Eddie!"_ she cried again, squinting as the smoke began to sing her eyes. She could see the outline of his body on the ground but little else. Had he been knocked unconscious by the force of the blast? The look of fear on his face as he tripped, unable to leave the room, came back to her as she screamed his name again.

The door had been blown from its hinges and leaned diagonally across the doorway which she attempted with all her might to shift but her arm was so severely damaged that she couldn't shift it even an inch. She cried out, both though the pain and the fear, then yelled Eddie's name again and again. She thought that she saw him twitch just slightly which prompted her to yell for him again but as she tried once more to shift the door she screamed in agony and had no choice but to get help from outside. She needed to get to Eddie. After the way they had grown close in the course of one difficult day she wasn't going to let him go that easily.

~xXx~

The screaming grasped the attention of the crowd that had gathered outside the crumbling station. Alex was the first to spot the silhouette running as fast as she could from the doorway and squinted to see who it was.

"Marci?"

"Bloody hell, she's giving the sirens a run for their money," Gene commented as she wailed her way toward them. She came to a sudden halt in front of Gene, tears of despair rolling down her soot-smeared face.

"_Guv,"_ she cried, "_it's Eddie…"_

She gulped down huge lungfuls of clean air between her sobs as the others gave her their full attention.

"Eddie?" Simon repeated.

Marci spun around to look at him.

"_Please_ help," she cried, "he's hurt, he's lying in the interview room, the bomb exploded…. He pushed me out the door but he fell…" Simon's eyes met Gene's, wide and worried, and Gene gave him a nod which Simon responded to by turning on his heels and racing toward the doorway.

"The door has fallen," Marci screamed after him, "It's blocking the way in… I couldn't move _–ow!"_ she cried as she attempted to move her arm again and succeeded only in causing herself incredible pain.

"Marci," Jake's anxiety rose as he saw the terrible state of his dearest friend, moving close to her and gently resting his fingers on the arm she was cradling. "Let me see."

"No, I need to get in to help Eddie –" she began but Jake shook his head.

"You need to get yourself to hospital," he told her, "what happened to your arm? Did you fall on it?"

Marci nodded, gulping for breath from her sobbing.

"He pushed me away," she cried, "he saved my _life_ –" her eyes fell upon his body and despite the awful situation she gave a frown. "Jake, why is your shirt undone?"

Before Jake could attempt to cover up either his amorous intentions or his chest the sight of Simon ducking back out the building caught their attention.

"_Gene,"_ he yelled out and they could see a look of dark terror across his face, "don't let her come in," he cried and immediately Marci's eyes bolted.

_"Eddie!"_ she screamed as she turned and made a lunge for the building but Gene grasped her by the shoulders and pulled her back, encasing her forcibly in a hold that would stop her from seeing whatever lay on the other side of the doorway.

Her eyes wide and worried, Alex glanced at Gene then turned to follow Simon before anyone could stop her. She'd barely been inside for a few moments when she turned and stumbled back out, her hand across her mouth, gagging and retching involuntarily. She looked at Gene in horror and nodded toward Marci.

"_Please don't let her see,"_ she mouthed and Gene nodded, tightening his grasp over her.

"_Eddie, no!"_ Marci screamed and struggled as Gene restrained her.

"Let him be, girl, "Gene grunted as he struggled to hold her back, "safer for you out here."

"He's _alive!"_ she screamed, "I saw him _moving."_

Gene turned to Alex and watched a tear roll down her face. His eyes questioned her. Was Marci right? Alex's expression told him as much as he needed to know, but she drilled home the point with the single word she mouthed to him;

"_Barely"._

Gene's eyes moved to the doorway. He swallowed as he thought about Simon heading back inside. Alex's reaction and the strange atmosphere that had descended both gave him a clue about what was about to happen. He closed his eyes and tried to deny it but he knew. He turned to Jake.

"Dawson, control your friend," he demanded.

"That's easier said than done," Jake told him warily. Marci was a determined thing at the best of times but in her current overwrought state there was no way she was going to listen to him or to anyone. He took over from Gene, holding her as tightly as he could while she screamed over and over,

"_Let me go! Let me go!"_

"I'm sorry, Marci," he whispered as he wrapped his arms around her, embracing her in a hug that served to keep her entrapped as well as send her the little comfort that he could, "_I'm sorry._

"He _has_ to be OK!" Marci cried, "It's not fair! It isn't fucking _fair!"_

But all that Jake could do was to keep on holding her, blinking away tears as her struggling slowly ended and gave way to loud, pained sobs as she wept against his chest. Inside she knew what she was trying so desperately to deny to herself. So did Jake.

~xXx~

Simon swallowed back a terrible wave of nausea as he stared through the doorway into the devastated room.

"_Shit,"_ he whispered, his eyes focused on the twitching body on the floor.

He didn't have a choice, he knew that much. This was his job. That was what he did. What he'd been _forced_ into doing, at least. He hated it. He detested it every bit as much now as the day the revelation has been forced upon him, brought to his knees cradling Susannah's lifeless body outside of the Falcon Building as she made her journey to the pub. Since that day he'd had the sad and unpleasant duty of escorting two more souls – the 'other' Alex and Lindsay. He spent most of his time wondering and dreading the next time that he would have to perform the task. He never knew when it was going to happen.

But he knew _now_.

Staring at the burned and devastated body before him, he _knew_.

"Oh no, Eddie, _no_."

He walked slowly towards him, stepping over the debris left in the doorway and dropped to his knees beside him. The crackling of fire and the din of alarms both melted into the distance as Simon stared at him. Eddie was barely recognisable with the flesh on his face burnt and peeling from the heat of the initial blast. There were large splinters from the desk jutting out from where they had buried themselves in his skin. He looked grotesque and the sight made Simon's stomach churn with revulsion but somehow the need to be there for the man overrode that and he somehow found the strength to reach forward with trembling hands and very gently lifted Eddie's head and shoulders into his lap.

Eddie managed to open one eye a tiny amount, his other sealed tightly closed by the burns from the searing heat. His body juddered horribly from the overriding agony that he was in, twitching involuntarily every few seconds. His screams had long since died out; where they had once let out the pain he had become so consumed by it that his vocal chords had all but seized up. He managed to rasp a little as his eye focused on Simon.

"_Eddie,"_ Simon's voice was distorted by emotion; he tried desperately to put his own fear and horror to one side. That was something Eddie did not need to hear. He swallowed as he stared at Eddie's raw, scorched skin. How much of the man's body was covered in burns? He didn't even want to think about it, but he knew it was enough… enough that Eddie wasn't going to be leaving the room with breath in his chest.

"_Sir,"_ Eddie barely managed to force out the word, distorted as it was by his lips that hardly moved.

"_Shhh,"_ Simon didn't want him to push himself more than necessary. He swallowed loudly. What was he supposed to do to comfort him when his pain was so severe? He remembered, as he stared, the man who had arrived in a panic, running around and attempting to use a stapler for a phone. He also recalled the sad man who'd said of his moment helping Keats; _"The first time someone actually admits you're a long way from home, you don't run, you stand where you are and listen when they say they can help you get back."_

"Eddie, don't try to move," he said quietly, "Don't try to speak."

"_Marci,"_ Eddie forced out the word regardless.

"She's safe," Simon told him firmly, "you saved her, Eddie. You pushed her at the right moment and she's alive." He watched Eddie's eye close for a moment and despite his horrific injuries a moment of peace passed over his features.

"_We –"_ he began. That was as much as he could manage to say but somehow Simon knew where that sentence was going; the general area at least.

_"I know,"_ he whispered. His hand trembled terribly as he reached out towards the top of Eddie's head, the one part of his body where there didn't seem to be burns, gently touching his hair, smoothing it slightly to try to bring just a touch of comfort, "Yeah. She liked you, Eddie. She really did." He tried to force a smile but it was full of tears. "You got there in the end didn't you? Without even wishing her clothes off."

He could see the pain on Eddie's face as he tried to breathe. The breath was too short and did nothing for his body but he managed to speak one last time.

"Tell her – I -" he began but his body started to shake and jolt harder and he couldn't finish his sentence. Simon nodded regardless.

"I'll tell her, I'll tell her," he whispered. He could feel things starting to move now; the energy that pulsed and buzz, the tingle that began to move through his arms and into his torso. He looked Eddie right in the eye as he said, "But she already knows. You love her."

As though in relief that he had finally been understood and not seen as a station joke and a skirt chaser Eddie's eye closed and a tiny gasp left his lips. It was almost imperceptible but he gave the tiniest nod and Simon felt that heat and energy travel to his heart. His eyes closed as his full sense and concentration went to that feeling. He could tell Eddie's movement was lessening, his juddering becoming less pronounced until he couldn't feel it any more. There was an amazing sensation if energy drawing out of the man's body and filling Simon with warmth before he felt it moving on, moving beyond that life, moving to another place where Eddie would find the peace he deserved after a traumatic and heart-breaking year in the nineties. He felt Eddie growing heavy in his hands and allowed himself to cry. Taking a friend was cruel, it was never really going to get any easier, but yet something felt different this time. There was something that made it feel less traumatic than usual. He couldn't really explain it. Was it because this time he had a place of his own, he wondered? Eddie wasn't going to the Railway Arms. He was going to _Bask_, _his_ place. The place where they'd spent so many night drunkenly bashing out any number of 90s classics.

Simon swore for all the world that he could hear one word in the air; '_soul'_, the whisper came in the crackle of the fire, and as he opened up his eyes he knew that Eddie had gone. He immediately bowed his head, tears falling into the face he could barely recognise.

"_I'm so sorry, Eddie,"_ he whispered. His attention was drawn to movement nearby as Gene's bulk shuffled to make its presence known. Simon's red, glassy eyes met Gene's grim stare. If he was honest Gene hadn't been sure that Simon could do it. It wasn't as though Simon had never helped a soul to pass before, but in the circumstances, the situation, the condition Eddie was in, it would have been completely understandable for Simon to run scared. He hadn't. Gene was genuinely proud of him.

He wanted to tell him that, but that wasn't the Gene Genie way. Even after almost 2 decades under Alex's influence there were some things he couldn't do. He moved awkwardly closer as he watched Simon gently slide his legs out from beneath Eddie's still lifeless body and lay him on the ground, then climb unsteadily to his feet. To Simon's surprise, Gene's flask was quickly thrust under his nose and he took it gratefully. As he took a long swig from the silver vessel he wished that the explosion had not sobered him up quite so fast. Eddie's death was not something he would be able to forget.

"Gene?" the sound of Alex's voice made them both jump, "The paramedics are here. For Eddie."

Gene glanced at Simon, silently asking if he was OK. Simon gave the thinnest of smiles as he handed back the flask, greeted with a solitary nod.

"Tell 'em they need the black blanket," Gene called out grimly before patting Simon stiffly on the back and indicating the doorway.

His head bowed, Simon slowly left the flaming, falling building and stepped out into the fresh air. He knew what was coming and it wasn't going to be pleasant.

Standing there outside was Marci; Jake's arms both hugging and restraining her at the same time. Simon only needed to day two words and the deed was done, but they were the hardest words to say.

"_I'm sorry."_

The screaming, the sobbing and the explosion of tears that followed were every bit as painful as feeling Eddie's corpse grow still and heavy in his hands. All he could do was to watch as the paramedics emerged a moment later, Eddie's burnt remains covered with a black sheet. Jake's best attempts at restraining her were no good as pulled away and ran, screaming, to the stretcher but while Gene tried to pull her away Simon shook his head.

"Let her do this," he pleaded. He knew that the hardest thing was never being able to say goodbye to somebody.

With Marci on her knees beside Eddie's body, Alex and Gene holding one another as the truth sank in and the sound of the fire hoses dousing the building behind them Simon felt very much alone. He roughly wiped his eye with the back of his hand and told himself bitterly to pull himself together. What was done had been done. Nothing was going to bring Eddie back.

"Sir?" Simon looked up to see Jake looking worried and anguished. Eddie had been his friend too. "You OK?"

Simon opened his mouth to give the big standard response but he couldn't bring himself to lie. He closed his eyes and shook his head instead. At a loss for anything else to do or any other way to help Simon, Jake simply put out his arms and brought him into a warm hug of sympathy. Jake may not have known what Simon had been through but he knew that just seeing a body was hard enough.

Simon was more grateful for the gesture than Jake would ever know. He was so used to feeling alone that the gesture of sympathy was greatly appreciated and allowed him to feel just a little less isolated than usual in the midst of a terrible moment. As he began to feel just a little less solitary, there was one thing Simon still needed to know.

"Jake?"

"Yeah?"

Simon looked at him as he wiped his eyes..

"Why is your shirt undone?!"

~xXx~

It made no sense to Eddie at all.

Since its closure two months previously Eddie had often missed _Bask_. He missed its atmosphere its cheesy music, the people, the booze, even the crappy DJ. It had been a part of his life for almost a year and although he'd often gone clubbing with Jake and Marci it wasn't the same.

The décor looked no different, yet he'd seen them _gutting_ the place, he'd seen them ripping out its innards to turn it into a discount store, he'd _seen_ them. They'd been working on it for the past 2 weeks. _Bask_ was no more.

"_Hey-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y,"_ a smoooooooth voice began above the din of the chatter, _"I hope you're all feeling fine on this good night, ladies and gentlemen! This one goes out to Eddie who is just joining us. We're glad to have you back and there's someone waiting for you at the bar to help brighten your night!"_

A glance over to the crappy DJ made Eddie frown in confusion as _Angels_ began to play and the DJ greeted Eddie with a grin.

Eddie's eyes scanned the bar. As soon as he spotted her, his jaw dropped. There she was, the bubbly redhead who he'd partied with relentlessly, maybe _once_ thought he had a bit of a thing for but now saw for what they had been; the very best of friends.

"Lindsay?!" he found himself gasping her name as he pressed forward toward her. The closer he came, the faster he moved until he was right there, hugging her tightly, amazed to see her face once more.

"Well hey there, stranger!" she greeted him with all the warmth of her radiant smile.

"_Linds?"_ he cried, "what the hell? I mean… how is it possible? How are you _here?"_

"Someone had to have a drink waiting for you," she told him as she reached for some pink monstrosity complete with umbrellas, a cardboard parrot and a sparkler. She handed it to him. "You look like you need it."

Eddie felt somewhat disorientated. He remembered heat and light and fire and pain but somehow his mind didn't let him make all of the connections. It didn't need to either.

"It's... not been the greatest of days," he said, fairly sure of that.

Lindsay lifted her own drink and held out her glass in a toast.

"To a wild night?" she asked.

Eddie glanced around him. In the back of his mind he _knew_. Things began to fall into place. This was _it_ wasn't it? This was _beyond._ This was where they went. _Some_ of them, at least. There, to one side, was a doorway connecting the bar with a certain pub where myriad _I Love London_ merchandise adorned the walls. Close by was another door that led to an Italian place Eddie had never known. They all linked up together just as Gene and Alex and Simon were all linked in their calling.

He closed his eyes and felt a strange sense of peace washing over him. It made sense. It made a _whole_ lot of sense. He nodded to himself as the music played away and he closed his eyes. One day, when it was her time, Marci would join him and he'd be there waiting for her. Until then he was going to miss her, but he knew now that eventually they would be reunited just as he had been with the friend he'd missed so badly.

Warmth settled across his chest as he sat his glass down and felt Lindsay pull him to the dance floor.

A little later he'd pick up the microphone and sing the night away.

One day Marci would join him for a long-awaited duet.

Until that day, he was at peace. That was something to raise a glass to.

_**~xXx~**_

_**A/N: That end part wasn't supposed to happen! The chapter was supposed to end miserably but then I just felt horribly guilty about Eddie and wanted to give him a little happiness in his ending. Eddie, I'm sorry!**_


	4. Chapter 3: Of Plaster and Pain

_**A/N: Thank you so much for following this story so far and huge thanks for the reviews which have really given me a boost and a kick up the arse! *hugs everyone***_

**~xXx~**

**Chapter Three**

Green wasn't really his colour but it would do for now.

Keats finished tying Robin's hands firmly around his back with one of the lengths of bandages that he had found tucked around the ambulance. It had been quite fortuitous as far as things went. Keats hadn't really had many expectations following the bomb blasts. His primary objective was to cause as much damage as possible in a short space if time. He was hoping he might be able to grab a few added extras afterwards but never had he expected to take such a fantastic prize.

"About time we did some brotherly bonding," he sneered as he tied a piece of material around Robin's mouth to act as a gag, "me and you. What do you say?" he laughed to himself as he finished tying the gag. "Not very much by the looks of it."

He needed to shift Robin's body around to tie his legs up so he jammed his foot into his stomach to do so. Despite letting out a pained noise Robin was still too stunned from his clobbering to come round. Keats gave a smirk and set about tying his legs as he glowered at Robin's features. He detested the echo of his own face that he saw within them. It made his blood boil to know that they shared half their DNA. Robin wasn't looking quite his normal self that night though; his lip was split and his face bore wounds from his earlier fight. He didn't _smell_ like normal either, Keats realised as he leaned over Robin. _Alcohol_. He reeked of the stuff.

"Try not to choke on your own vomit, Robin," Keats told him as he continued to tie his legs.

This really was like scooping a bonus prize. Like completing Sonic 2 and getting all the chaos emeralds too.

X

As the ambulance crews had started arriving, Keats saw his opportunity to expand his plan. With more chaos ensuing it became easier for him to wander without standing out. Everyone was busy watching the crumbling building. No one noticed the man in the dark coat slipping amongst them.

When he spotted the ambulance driver standing by his vehicle having a crafty smoke it was like a gift-wrapped treat that he couldn't turn down.

The fire extinguisher sat on the floor nearby. Used by an escaping officer to fight her way through the flames. It had been long-since abandoned; half-empty and useless when it came to controlling the fire. Keats had flexed his fingers and scooped it up as quick as a flash. Considering the fact that the station was on fire in several places no one thought anything of him wandering around the car park with such an object.

Hidden from view around the side of his ambulance, the driver glanced up as the figure approached in his long, dark coat.

"You alright, sir?" the man asked, stamping out his cigarette.

In reply Keats merely held the fire extinguisher above him and brought it down sharply to the side of the paramedic's head.

As he dropped to the floor, a plan began to form in Keats's mind and it didn't take long to shape into something workable. It only took him a moment to drag the man around the side of the station dumpsters. The paramedic was somewhat larger than Keats; a few extra pounds all over his frame, and the uniform fitted easily over Keats's own clothes to spare him the time and indignity of getting undressed in the open air in order to slip into something more green and less comfortable.

After he had donned his disguise he simply had to wait. He'd chosen the area of the canine unit as the location for one of his devices specifically to spite Robin. The fact that the area had been devoid of people had been a bonus too, but just after setting it up the dogs had gone crazy so he'd moved quickly to the next location. The unit more or less abandoned overnight, no one else was close enough to pay attention as he knocked him out and hauled him into the back of the ambulance.

"And now you're all tied up like a birthday present," Keats smirked.

~xXx~

"_Guv! Guv!"_

Gene ignored the shout at first. He had enough to deal with there and then. Simon had taken Eddie's passing better than Gene had expected, which worried him in itself. He remembered the physical and emotional mess that he'd been in when performing his duty before. He wasn't shaking or sobbing, despite losing his friend. He sat in silence in the ground as fire crews and other emergency services worked away at the smouldering building.

Gene waved his flask under Simon's nose again but it took Simon a moment to glance up.

"I'm alright," he said quietly, waving his hand to dismiss the scotch. Gene drew back a little, shocked.

"Blimey, now I _am_ worried," he said.

"Guv, _here_… there's another one," Jake said shakily as another body bag moved along beside them on a stretcher, "it's DI Peter Vickery."

Simon felt his stomach drop.

_"My whole fucking department,"_ he said under his breath_, "wiped out in one night."_

"_Guv!"_

This time he couldn't ignore the insistent cry. He turned to see Shaz running towards them, her uniform dusty and ripped at one side.

"Here's another one accounted for," he said as Shaz stopped just before them.

"Guv, have you seen Chief Inspector Thomas?"

Shaz's words were not ones that Simon had been expecting and he scrambled to his feet, ignoring the fact that Shaz hadn't been speaking to him.

"What?" he said quickly.

Shaz turned to him.

"Have you seen him?" she panted, brushing a little of the dust from her face.

"I thought…" Simon glanced around. The last he knew Robin was having his wounds treated. He just assumed that he'd gone home after that. He turned to Jake. "Wasn't he with _you?"_

Jake felt his face reddening as it did its very best to show him up and reveal some truths.

"No," he said, feeling self-conscious as everyone turned to stare, "I finished cleaning him up and then there was an emergency…" he turned to Shaz, "I thought he was with _you."_

"He _was_," Shaz said quickly, "there were dogs…" she trailed off as her eyes scanned Jake and she frowned. "Why isn't your shirt done up, Jake?"

Jake wanted to disappear down a hole.

"What happened with the dogs?" he asked loudly as he tried to fasten the buttons again but his trembling fingers had other ideas.

"It was the weirdest thing," Shaz's face was full of innocent wonder as she recalled the strange events that had taken place, "you'll call me crazy."

"You'll _drive_ us crazy if you don't hurry this story up," Gene said quickly.

"There were two dogs and they weren't ours," Shaz told them, "one was going mad. We couldn't catch it. Then another dog just… _arrived."_

Gene frowned.

"By horse-drawn carriage?"

"We don't know where he came from, Guv," Shaz shrugged in confusion, "but Sir knew her.

Simon narrowed his eyes.

"What do you mean, _knew her?"_

"She was his dog," Shaz explained, "she'd run away once and found her way home."

"Robin doesn't have a dog," Simon shook his head.

"Cassandra," Shaz told him and suddenly the world began to spin at double-speed.

Simon stared at her, blinking as though when his eyes reopened everything would make sense, but it didn't. He swallowed and tried to take that in.

"_Cassandra?"_ he repeated.

"Beautiful dog," said Shaz, "she was so pleased to see him."

"Then where is he now?" Simon cried.

"That's what I was asking _you!"_

"Where did you last see him?"

"I left him with his dog," said Shaz, "just before the blast. He wanted to spend some time with Cassandra, I think. He sent me up to you with a message but I didn't make it that far."

Simon was wide eyed. He swallowed. His eyes scanned the car park looking for any trace of him but when he couldn't see any sign he had a terrible sinking feeling inside.

"_Shit,"_ he breathed.

He began to move forward towards the canine unit, scanning the area as he went.

"Shoebury, don't be a bloody idiot!" Gene cried as he started to follow him.

Simon broke into a trot and Gene did his best to keep up but he was still somewhat unsteady from his injuries and couldn't stay with him. He caught up as Simon froze, dogs circling his legs. He turned and glanced at Gene.

"I _hate_ these things," he said as the dogs panted and lavished affection on his trousers. "Ugh! The _drool!"_ Simon shuddered. One of them came and sat directly by his feet, tilted its head and barked before lying down on the ground and whimpering. Immediately Simon felt like he'd been struck with a revelation.

"_Cassandra?!"_ he gasped. He knelt down and despite his anti-dog stance he reached forward and stroked her soft coat, staring her in the eye, "It.. it _is_ you." He swallowed and turned to Shaz.

"You said he sent you up with a message for me?"

Shaz nodded.

"He did."

"What sort of a message?" he demanded.

"He said he was really sorry, Sir," Shaz told him.

There was a steady, insistent beat banging away in Simon's ears that he didn't realise for the longest time was his own pulse. He swallowed as he stared at the entrance to the canine unit. The thought that no one had seen him was causing a boulder of anxiety to grow in the middle of his stomach.

"Robin?" he cried as he took one last look around the car park. If he'd been there then surely he would have gravitated towards the group by now? "_Robin_!" There was no sign; no sign at all. Cassandra whimpered and laid a paw on Simon's foot. "What?" Simon asked, too worried to feel stupid about talking to a dog, "Where is he, Cassandra? Where's Robin?"

"Her name's not _Lassie_, you daft bugger," Gene cried, slightly irritated but Simon didn't even register it.

"_Robin!"_ he screamed one more time. But once again there came no response. He didn't care about the stupid fight they'd had. He didn't care about his jealousy any more. He didn't care who Robin was or wasn't enjoying bedroom Olympics with. He just wanted him back safe, sound and in one piece. The dogs were all running around, so where the _fuck_ was Robin? He would have been with them. Unless he _couldn't_ be. Unless he couldn't get _out_. What if he went back in one last time and something happened? What if –

Instinct took hold of Simon and sent him hurtling toward the doorway with Gene yelling after him. When it became clear that Simon wasn't listening Gene knew he had no choice but to follow, mumbling about what a bloody idiot he was as he went. Alex had been distracted by the doggy gathering for a moment but realised that she was being left behind.

"_Gene, don't be stupid!"_ she cried as she started to run after him,.

"Why not? _He_ bloody is!" Gene protested.

"Then don't follow him!" cried Alex but she knew she was wasting her breath, "oh, what's the use?"

Before they knew it all three were inside the building once again. There was smoke and a terrible, growing heat but the flame itself seemed to be keeping a distance. With his sleeve over his nose and mouth Simon ran into the main compound but not only was there no sign of Robin there were no sign of any dogs either. By the time Alex and Gene caught up with him he was already doubling back on himself

"_He's not in there,"_ he cried, rushing back into the corridor then past them both.

"Where are you going _now?"_ cried Alex.

"Checking his office," Simon yelled, struggling to be heard over the crackling of the flames and the din of the alarms.

Alex chased him closely but with his walking still hampered Gene had to keep a few paces behind, frustrating him beyond compare.

"Both of you have got a bloody death wish!" he cried, trying to push himself forward but he was struggling now, exhausted and in pain. He began to wish he hadn't been quite so hasty in binning his pills.

Simon screeched to a halt inside the doorway of Robin's office and looked around but the room was empty. Well what had he _expected?_ Why would Robin even have _been_ there? It wasn't as though he was desperate to save a pile of beloved paperwork, was it?

"_Simon!"_ Alex cried crossly as she caught him up and skidded just inside of the room, "come _on_, Simon, he's not here – he'll be out _there_ somewhere.

"But no one's seen him –" Simon cried

"_Someone_ will have seen him," Alex yelled, "remember what Shaz said – maybe he was trying to find where Cassandra came from and had already left by the time the explosions happened."

"All the dogs are loose," Simon reminded her, "He _had_ to have been here. He had to be the one who –"

The end of his sentence was cut off by an almighty creaking noise and the sound of rushing dust and debris. Simon and Alex's eyes opened wide and their heads turned upward in time to see movement from above them.

"_Shit –"_ was as much as Alex got out while attempting to dive sideways but neither had enough time to move before chunks of plaster fell onto them followed by a light fitting that pulled down with it a metal bar. The collection of objects struck both Simon and Alex just in time for Gene's arrival and with extreme horror he saw them both,lying on the floor, crushed and trapped. The flames were encroaching and smoke was flooding the air while the ominous rumbling sound that drew Gene's eyes upward for a moment showed more of the building was about to follow the same way as the light fitting.

"_Shit,"_ Gene gasped as the full reality of the situation struck him. The heat was starting to sting his back and the smoke made him want to hack up a lung but it was the terrified look on Alex's face as she struggled fruitlessly to push the heavy bar from her back and cried his name that truly hurt.

"_Gene… GENE!"_

"_Bolly,"_ he hissed as he scrambled towards her over plaster and metal, but before he could act Simon's voice begged for help.

"_Gene – Please!" _

Gene spun to one side and saw Simon's agonized expression as the other end of the bar lay across his shoulders and back.

"_Shoebury –"_

The smoke and the heat were becoming harder to cope with and the onset of the flames nearby put them all in a more severe situation by the second. Simon coughed and choked as hard as his compressed chest would allow. He knew he wasn't getting enough oxygen into his body and the feeling of desperation was growing.

"_Help me – I can't… can't take any more…"_ he gasped as the pain worsened.

"_Gene!" _Alex's voice cried out.

He turned from one to the other, both in agony, both choking on the acrid air, both in direct danger as plaster crumbled above them, sending a shower of dust to the ground. The rumbling noise grew more insistent and Gene could see movement above them as the ceiling threatened to crumble further. He turned back to them and swallowed. He didn't have long and knew he had to act immediately but there was no way he could save them both. The ceiling was moments from collapse and he didn't even know if he could take _one_ from the danger but –

"_Gene!"_

"_Gene, please!"_

He felt his stomach churn and his heart raced as he looked from one to the other and swallowed desperately. _The love of his life or his flesh and blood._ He only had one chance. And so did they. It was the hardest choice that Gene would ever have to make and he knew that whichever way it went he was going to have to live with it for the rest of his life.


	5. Chapter 4: Of Guilt and Fate

**Chapter 4**

It could only have been a second, and yet it felt like an eternity.

Between realising that he needed to choose between saving Alex or Simon and actually making a move it felt to Gene as though forever and a day passed by. He stared at Alex, remembering the moment he first set eyes in her, dressed like the classiest prozzie he'd ever seen. He recalled those nights at Luigi's, drinking together over candlelight. He remembered the night that changed it all, the mistake of sending her to the pub and the jump she made from the window to get back to him. He thought of all the time that passed between then and now, growing closer, facing the trouble life threw their way. He remembered his devastation when she awoke in two thousand and bollocks. How could he ever live without her?

But then his eyes turned to Simon and he remembered the geek-arsed twat who turned up in 1985, only to return a decade later on a permanent basis. Both he and Gene had changed enough to find a middle ground in their nature and a grudging respect and friendship began to grow until Gene realised that, for the first time since he delivered Sam to the pub, he actually had a friend. More than that, he had a _best_ friend. He pictured _that_ conversation, where the truth came out. He remembered the video. He recalled the shock of learning that Simon was his son and how, very gradually, they'd stopped it from getting in the way of the understanding they'd reached. In a strange way Gene was almost proud. Not that he would ever have admitted that.

Crumbling plaster pulled Gene's attention upward and he could see more of the ceiling starting to shift. He swallowed hard, his pulse throbbing in his head.

"_Gene, please –"_

"_Help me, Gene –"_

He closed his eyes and drew in his breath deeply. There could only be one. One chance. One person to save.

"_I'm sorry,"_ he breathed and began to move forward.

The moment Simon watched Gene head toward Alex he knew that his life was over. His eyes widened and a terrifying sense of helplessness ran through his veins.

"_No!"_ he cried, "_Please_, Gene! _Help_ me! _Help me!"_ there were tears flooding from his eyes as he begged and pleaded for Gene to change his mind but despite the discovery of the hidden branch of his family tree there could never have been any other decision for Gene. In the same way that the decade and a half they'd shared had brought Alex to choose Gene over Molly Gene couldn't think of Simon as his own flesh and blood. The man was thirty four years old, they'd bonded as friends in a grudging sort of a way but despite having similar features, fair hair and blue eyes Gene and Simon had been strangers until a year and a half earlier, albeit for a few days a decade before.

He worked in silence as he hauled chunks of plaster and brick from Alex and loosened the metal bar, listening to her painful cries and trying to block out Simon's anguished screams.

"Please, Gene!" He begged, "don't leave me here! Please, I don't want to die!" The irony that the man who'd come so close to going over the edge just a few weeks earlier had made enough progress in taking back his life that he was desperate to survive hurt Gene even more but he had to stay focused. _Save Alex first_, that was all he could do. Maybe there would still be time. Maybe somehow he could come back and –

The creaking and shifting of the ceiling and one of the walls, followed by the swift arrival of a couple of bricks and a flurry of dust reminded Gene that the possibility was highly unlikely. He heard Simon splutter as the dust went up his nose and inside his mouth, then tried to block out his screams.

"_Gene, no! Help me!"_

"I'm sorry, son," Gene said as flatly as he could, desperate not to show how much his decision was wrenching out his heart inside.

"_Please!"_

Gene finally shifted the metal bar enough to drag Alex out, screaming in pain, from underneath it.

"_I'm so sorry."_

"You can't leave me here!" Simon begged, "I don't want to die, Gene, I don't want to _die!"_

Gene closed his eyes for a slit second and drew in breath as he steeled himself for the strain of scooping Alex into his arms. Still not at his strongest he knew it wasn't going to be easy, but he found her lighter than he was expecting. He knew she was struggling to get back to a healthy weight since returning to his world in her younger body that had been through two comas back in the real world but he hadn't realised she was still quite so skinny. That worried him in itself but he didn't have time to think of it as she cried out and murmured about how badly her back was hurting, almost delirious from the fear and the pain.

As he staggered towards the doorway, narrowly avoiding another flurry of ceiling tiles and plaster, he took one last glance at Simon's face. _Big mistake, Gene, big mistake._ The fear in his eyes would never cease to haunt him.

"_Please,"_ he wept one last time.

"I'm so sorry, Simon," Gene's voice was breaking up, "You'll be OK… you'll be fine, son, you'll be fine."

He tried to believe that, he truly did. With Simon's status, maybe there was a way he could survive, but even as he tried to persuade himself he knew it didn't work that way. If someone put a gun to Simon's chest and pulled the trigger there was a good chance he would be fine but accidental deaths seemed to be a different matter. Plus rules were changing as his own recent injuries reminded him.

"Gene… Gene_, no!"_ Simon screamed, his eyes bolting as he watched Gene leave him alone to face the crumbling walls, "_no_! Don't leave me… _please_ Gene! _Please! Gene! GENE!"_

Gene couldn't look back. He didn't dare. He just had to keep on moving forward. Alex was in his arms, he could still get her to safety and that's what he had to concentrate on. But as he turned and moved swiftly towards the exit the deafening sound of collapsing bricks brought a choking scream to Gene's throat as the reality of Simon's fate struck him with the same force as a crumbling building.

He tumbled from the doorway, staggering, barely able to deal with what he'd witnessed. The fact that he had hesitated for a moment after the collapse and could no longer hear the sound of Simon's screams sent a lump into his throat that was going nowhere.

He made it a safe distance from the building and sank awkwardly to his knees as others saw them and flocked around.

"Guv, what happened?" cried Shaz, the sight of Alex's face screwed up in pain worrying her terribly.

Gene took in a few deep breaths as paramedics spotted them and moved in to assist.

"Celling collapsed," he choked out, spluttering a little from his devastation as well as the dust. He looked up at the paramedic. "Big metal bar fell on 'er back," he told them.

"What's her name?." one of them asked while the other one shone a torch in her face to check her pupils, causing her to yell,

"_It fell on my back, not in my eyes!"_

"Alex," Gene said, breathing heavily. He closed his eyes as he heard the paramedics talking to her.

"Alex? We're going to get you straight to hospital, alright?

"Tell us where you're feeling the pain, love."

"We're going to bring you over a stretcher right away, alright?"

As another paramedic came closer Gene stumbled to his feet and grasped him by the shirt.

"_In there,"_ he panted, "Another one. A man. Ceiling caved." He flinched as he recalled the sound of the falling debris.

"Alright, sir, I'll speak with the fire brigade and we'll get to him as soon as possible."

"You need to get to him _now_," Gene told him, pulling his shirt a little harder and wishing there was a filing cabinet in the car park.

"We will get to him as soon as we possibly can," the paramedic pulled his shirt away from Gene and glared at him momentarily.

"It's his son," Alex's weak, pained voice spoke up which earned her a quick glare from Gene who didn't want the world to know, despite his lose lips at his welcome back party.

"Bloody idiot's a geek, he'll be fashioning a teleporter out of that light fitting," he mumbled as he watched Alex being lifted gently onto a stretcher trolley. She looked somewhat disturbed as they began to strap her in repeatedly.

"I'm not going to the loony bin!" she protested but one of the paramedics shook her head.

"No, love, it's a precaution to keep you still," she said, "in case there's any damage to your spine."

Gene felt a wave of panic suddenly. What if there _was_ damage? What if he'd made it worse by lifting her up? He couldn't think of that now though. He knew that if he hadn't taken her from the building when he had she would be crushed and buried by now.

_Like Simon._

He gulped hard as a wave of nausea brought bile to his throat.

"You'll be fine, Bols," he said firmly as he began to follow the trolley towards an ambulance but Alex quickly said,

"No, Gene, you must stay here. Wait for Simon."

"I'm not leaving you on your bloody tod, Bolly."

"I'm fine, they'll look after me," Alex told him, "that's their job."

Gene hesitated beside her. She looked so frail all of a sudden. Feeling how light she was had worried him. He hadn't realised quite how weak she still was in many ways. How much was this going to affect her?

"You think I can leave me better half behind?" he asked, his voice cracking a little. Alex looked very sad.

"No, Gene," she whispered, "that's the thing," her eyes began to glisten a little as tears appeared within them, "you didn't leave me behind." Her eyes darted back to the station where Simon was trapped inside, dead or severely hurt, alone, facing the end - if it hadn't already taken him. Gene realised for the first time that by choosing Alex she would _also_ bear the guilt of being his first choice and leaving Simon to be crushed by the falling walls. "You need to wait here," she told him quietly, "for Simon."

Gene swallowed.

"If he ever comes out of there," he said grimly.

Her hand twitched between straps and Gene caught the motion, taking it with uncomfortable reluctance.

"He will, Gene," she told him, "wait for him."

The look they exchanged as the paramedics wheeled her away spoke volumes. Gene knew that she was right – someone had to wait for Simon because, dead or alive, he deserved for someone to be there. He'd let him down once. He wasn't going to do it again.

Slowly he turned around and focused his eyes on the building as a fire crew descended on the doorway. Whatever condition Simon was in, Gene would face it. Simon wasn't going to come back into the night-time air alone.

~xXx~

Keats slammed the doors and ran around to the front of the ambulance. Tied, gagged and covered with blankets, Robin was still unconscious and just right for shipping to the basement.

He opened the door on the driver's side and jumped in, closing it behind him and turning the key in the ignition. This was it, this was his moment of glory – not only had he destroyed the opposition but now he was going to destroy Robin too.

A jolt made him stop and freeze for a moment. What the _fuck_ was _that? _As he looked in the wing mirror he saw the doors were open again and to his abject horror a trolley was being wheeled inside. _Oh fuck! Oh fuck, fuck, fuck!_ That was all he needed, a half-dead passenger and a couple of paramedics. _Now_ what? Now the fuck what?

A fist hammered on the door and his heart raced in anxiety. He tried to hide his face a little as he rolled down the window a crack.

"Sorry, mate," the paramedic outside began, "got an urgent one, needs to be seen right away. She's in the back. Because there are so many we're doubling up just this once, we're bringing in another one too, give us five minutes to make him comfortable and we'll bring him on board."

Keats his behind his spectacles.

"No problem," he said, hoping that the paramedic couldn't hear his heart thumping in fear. He swallowed and tried to calm himself down. Taking a deep breath he made his plans. All he had to do was go back to the back of the ambulance, shove the trolley back down the ramp, slam the doors and speed away faster than Gene heading to the bar just before closing time.

He was angry to find himself shaking. _Don't do that, you twat,_ he told himself as he slipped from the vehicle and rushed around the back. _Get this over and done with. It's almost over. You've already won, now you just need your souvenir._

But as he approached the back of the ambulance and set his eyes on the trolley his heart did a 360 degree turn in his chest and his jaw dropped. The sight of Alex lying strapped and helpless was not only the last thing he had been expecting but also the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

Just for once, fate was smiling in his direction.

She caught his eye. It was just for a moment but the fear was strong and immediate. As her eyes bolted and her mouth opened to let forth a scream of terror he flashed her a split-second smirk and then pushed the ramp up as fast as he could before slamming the doors once again.

Her muffled cries as he retreated back to the driver's seat and leapt inside filled him with an exquisite sense of ecstasy. _This was it. _His dreams were coming true, all in one go. It was the best day of his life and couldn't possibly have brought a better reward.

He had it all now.

There was no stopping him.

As he pulled out of the car park at speed, ambulance weaving from side to side he felt himself almost exploding with pride.

That was the night's prospective sex and violence sorted out. He was a walking watershed all by himself.


	6. Chapter 5: Of Fear and Familiarity

**Chapter 5**

All she could do was to run.

She had no car, nor money for public transport so for want of a better plan she ran.

It was fairly disorienting for Kim to deal with. She wasn't altogether sure she was on the right path if she was totally honest. It had been almost a decade since she'd been to the area… back in the real world there _was_ no Fenchurch West. Her body wasn't in the best condition for all the running either if she was honest. She felt weak quickly began to tire, and her hands were trembling. The shakes were starting to spread through the rest of her body too, as hard as she tried to fight them.

The moment her surroundings began to look a little more familiar she just wanted to cry with relief. Finally she knew she was heading in the right direction. It was like finding a bus stop when she'd been walking for hours.

Now she knew _where_ she was her mind turned to the matter of _when_. What year was it? What month? She scanned the street for evidence. There seemed to be a lot of people around but no real reason for it. It took several minutes before she stumbled upon a real clue; a pub with red bunting and balloons up outside with a lot of drunken revellers, sent out to go home hours, ago singing _Things Can Only Get Better._

"The General election?" she whispered as her pace started to slow a little. She just couldn't keep going at the same speed. Her muscles began to burn and her chest hurt as she tried to draw in enough oxygen to keep her going. As her pace slowed down further and further she began to fear she wouldn't make it. She cursed herself for feeing so weak and tired. But the moment she caught the distant sight of smoke and flame she realised she had no option but to press on.

She knew.

She didn't know _how_ she knew but she did.

_I'm too fucking late._

She closed her eyes for a split second then drew together her remaining strength and pushed herself on harder. She just _had_ to get there. She knew where the smoke and the flames were emanating from. The closer she came to the station the clearer it was that her visions were beginning to come true.

_Please don't tell me I've been through all of this for nothing._

She couldn't demand where and when she would appear in the world. It was hard enough getting there at all, let alone anything more complicated than that. But with Fenchurch East already in the midst of crumbling what did that say for her visions of Robin and Alex?

X

She didn't even know how she managed to make it that far. Her limbs ached and burned as she finally stumbled through the gates. She pressed one hand to her chest as she gulped in lungfuls of air. Her chest felt raw, as though someone had been slicing it up with a knife. It didn't matter how many breaths she took, it never seemed to help. Against her hand she could feel the racing of her heart. She felt her chest expand and contract as she breathed in and out. She remembered feeling that same sensation as she'd contemplated her exit from the real world. She knew back then that the next time she felt it she would know she had made it.

She closed her eyes and drew in another, deeper breath, this time letting it out very slowly. The smell of the smoke was starting to snake into her lungs and wasn't going to help matters. She had to pull herself together.

Her eyes scanned upward and for the first time she took in exactly how much damage there was before her.

"_Holy… fucking… shit,"_ she breathed.

More than one area of the station was crumbling; more than one area was on fire. There were fire crews dousing the station, ambulance crews scurrying around, bodies on stretchers and shivering, shocked coppers staring at the place where they had been safely inside of just a few minutes before.

Her jaw dropped as she slowly walked through the car park. She felt herself shaking but this time it wasn't the need for scotch that was causing it. The fact of being back there… to the past, to Gene's world, to the version of the station she had known so well… it shook her down to her bones.

"_I can't believe it,"_ the alarms and sirens stole the words that she whispered into the breeze, "I can't believe I'm here again."

Every step she took through the car park with her clunky boots was like taking a step back into her past. _Her_ past, not just '_the'_ past. It was not about being back in the 90s, it was about travelling back to her own past, confronting the days that she had struggled so hard to deal with for all those years after waking from her coma.

She swallowed hard. This was almost more than she could take.

Walking through the gathered crowd, she made her way forward, walking close to people in the hope that she could catch an explanation or any clue to what had happened. A couple of fire fighters were talking nearby. She slowed right down so she could catch their conversation.

"…_at least three separate devices?"_ one of them said questioningly and Kim's heart sank.

"_Yeah, looks that way,"_ the other said, "_there's evidence that…"_ the end of his sentence was lost by the rush of water as more hoses turned onto the station. Kim's blood ran as cold as the jets of water. She rubbed her arms a little, unsure whether it was the chilly night-time air or the shock that was sending goosebumps through her body. She kept her eyes on the ground as she walked toward a row of uniformed officers and overheard someone saying,

"…_doesn't look very hopeful for him, the whole ceiling came down on the guy."_

Kim shuddered again. She felt tears springing to her eyes. She was too late she was too _fucking late_ to stop the fire or the blasts or the devastation. But what about the other things she had seen? Robin and Alex… where were _they?_ She'd seen them suffering at the hands of the most evil of men. Just because she couldn't stop the bombs didn't mean she couldn't stop them from falling into his hands. But as though fate was listening the next cruel blow came with one single sentence overheard from anther gathering of fire crew;

"…_and one confirmed to be on the premises that's still unaccounted for; Chief Inspector Robin Thomas."_

Kim recalled only too well the agony of the knife that plunged into her guts to send her to Gene's world nine years ago. Those simple words had the exact same effect on her now. Real physical pain surged through her as her stomach lurched and twisted at the horror of those words. She feared she was going to throw up right there in the middle of the car park. _Unaccounted for._ That was the most terrifying phrase of all. Not _missing_, not _presumed to be dead and buried at the bottom of a flaming pile of bricks. _If they thought he was trapped inside… that maybe they could get to him… that he was in the station somewhere… that would have been one thing. Hard enough to deal with but there would have been hope.

But, no.

He was _'unaccounted for'._

Tears ran down Kim's face as her eyes fixed on the ground.

"_I know where he is,"_ she whispered.

Too late, too _fucking late._ Robin… _Robin_…. The tears began to stream now and there was nothing she could do to stop them.

She pressed her back against a vehicle and closed her eyes, gulping air as she felt herself in fear of hyperventilating. She had to try to keep calm. Her visions so far seemed to be coming true; the flames the explosions, and now Robin 'unaccounted' for, But that didn't mean to say it was _absolutely_ too late, her visions had shown her where he was. He would still be alive, at least for now.

"But…" Kim whispered as her eyes opened wide, "he's not the _only_ one I saw…" she swallowed, "_Alex_…" her eyes began to scan the scene frantically. There was one other vision she'd had. Someone else in danger, and maybe it wasn't too late for her. Where _was_ she? Where the fuck _was_ she? _"Alex?" _she called out loud and began to move through the car park again. The thought of Robin being elsewhere, in danger, was killing her inside but she still had hope as long as she knew what she was dealing with. Where was Alex? Was she still there – or 'unaccounted for?'

She felt so hopelessly lost, so out of her depth. What the _fuck_ did she think she was doing? Storming in, taking up residence in another world… now what how the hell was she supposed to help them? Were was she to go from here?

She was lost… she had nothing… no one…

The sudden sight of familiar features was a revelation to her.

It was the first friendly face she had seen since she awoke in the car park of Fenchurch West. Her eyes opened wide and she gasped. It wasn't the face she was looking for... in fact, of all the faces it was probably the one she had been hoping for the _least_, but –

It had been years. Nine long years. Almost a decade.

And although they're never totally seen eye to eye… although she had hated him for the longest time… in the end…

Before she knew it she found herself moving forward at speed towards him. She couldn't even explain it but the sight of him after all those years invoked a sense of safety and belonging that she could never have anticipated.

_I'm home._

~xXx~

Gene felt as though his face was made of stone No matter what happened he couldn't change his expression. He felt like a sculpture. A sculpture of a very worried person. His eyes remained on the building as another fire crew entered with a paramedic.

"They'll let you know as soon as they have any news," Jake said unnecessarily, which was an invitation for Gene to unleash his acid tongue in his direction.

"Oh they _will?"_ He cried, "so they've not been sworn to secrecy? Not going to publish it in _Hello_ magazine? Not going to skywrite it, then?"

Jake looked annoyed but wasn't going to anger the already pissed-off Gene.

"Just be patient, Guv," he said quietly.

"_Patient?"_ Gene spat the word as though it tasted like bad wine, "being patient is what you do when you're stuck behind Terry in the canteen queue and you're waiting for him to decide between apple crumble and chocolate bloody gateaux! Being _patient_ is what you do when it's a week 'til Christmas and you're waiting to see if yer nearest and dearest have bought you the right bloody teletubby! Being patient is _not_ waiting to see if a man's been crushed under yer own bloody station, so take your patience and shove it up your –"

Fortunately for Jake he never found out where Gene wanted to shove his patience because Gene found the end of his sentence halted by the biggest shock he'd had this side of Alex's return. _"Strike a light."_

The anxious, emotional expression that came towards him was familiar. It had a few more years, a few more wrinkles and even a few more piercings on its side than the fresh-faced girl he'd battled with for all those months but there was still no mistaking it, _"Kim bloody Stringer.,"_

Kim shook. She trembled. It wasn't the cold, nor the fear, nor the need for alcohol. It was simply gravity… the enormity of the situation hit her the second her eyes met Gene's.

Gene Hunt; _the Guv_, the man she'd detested with all of her being for so many months, the man she'd finally warmed to, the man who led his team so strongly. Suddenly she stood before him on equal terms in all but height. She even had boots to rival his.

For the longest time she stood and stared. This was _it_ for her; this was the moment she really believed that she was back in the other world. She knew the moment she laid eyes on Gene Hunt there was no denying it and definitely no going back. Her vocal chords seized up and although her lips parted and moved there was no sound. She flinched, closed her eyes and tried again.

_"Hello, Guv."_

Her voice was quiet, raspy, rough from the drinking and the non-existent sleep and the living on junk and air.

He stared back, not altogether sure that he could believe his eyes. For just a moment everything else was forgotten. All he could focus on was the woman standing before him, looking every bit as stunned as he felt.

"I'd…. I'd say '_as I live and breathe'_," he began, shocked, "but the fact yer here says that might be a bit tasteless."

Kim barely even heard him. The reality of what she had done sank in the moment she set eyes on him. Gene was, in her eyes, the personification of being dead. She didn't mean that in a cruel way, but he symbolised the afterlife. The beyond. Simon, Robin, Alex – to different degrees she had seen or known them all while they were alive. She'd fallen in love with Robin, shared an intimate friendship with Alex and even seen Simon at Malcolm's memorial, even though he had no idea who she was. But Gene had always been dead. He'd died decades earlier. To Kim, it felt as though he'd never been alive at all.

Seeing him there before her reminded her of exactly what she had done. She'd seen it as taking a leap of faith to make a journey.

The rest of the world was going to call it _suicide._

She flinched as that reality struck her. It made her feel sick and scared. Suddenly everything terrified her. _Everything_ daunted her. The whole concept was so big, so terrifying that she almost forgot what she was there for.

But as much as Gene reminded her of death, he reminded her of that other side too, that she was there for a reason, back in the place that, she came to realise, she'd been missing for the last nine years.

Overwhelmed by an influx of emotions, exhausted and terrified, the sight of Gene provoked a response in Kim that neither of them had been expecting, Kim maybe even less than Gene. In desperate need of strength and security she flung herself toward him, threw her arms around his neck and let out one loud, anguished sob against him before she restrained the tears and let only one fall from her eye. With any luck, she thought, he wouldn't even notice.

Gene had been more shocked by the hug than he was by seeing Kim at all. He didn't know how to respond at first. He remembered the feisty young DS who'd fought against him for month before slowly warming to him and finding a grudging respect for one another. The outer shell was older and weathered but that determination was still there in her eyes.

After a few moments he found himself gradually holding her. He closed his eyes and realised how alone he'd been before she arrived. Alex was on her way to hospital, Robin was missing, and Simon was –

He didn't want to finish that thought.

"I never thought I'd say this, Stringer," he began gruffly, "but you're a bloody sight for sore eyes."

"I'm a bloody _mess_ is what I am," Kim mumbled against him but quickly she took the strength she needed from the familiarity of seeing Gene again and pulled herself together. She drew away from him and looked him in the eye. "Where is she?" she asked him flatly.

Gene had no idea what she was talking about now.

"What?"

"Where is she?"

"Where's who?"

"_Alex!"_ cried Kim.

In his confusion the only thing that Gene could think of doing was the thing that came naturally to him – having a dig.

"Been back two minutes and you're already trying to turn me fiancée again?"

"Where _is_ she?" Kim was in no mood for Gene's lip and with good reason.

"She's in the back of a bloody _ambulance_ on the way to hospital if you must know, Metal Mickey."

Kim froze.

"She's what?"

"Had half the bloody canine unit dropping on her back," Gene said stiffly, trying not to think about what happened to the _other_ half.

Kim froze. She couldn't quite work out how that fitted into her vision.

"Are you _sure?"_ she demanded.

Gene stared at her, bewildered and cross.

"No, I just like pretending Alex has _possible injuries_ to her flaming _spine_ and sending her off to hospital for no _reason!"_

"No, I mean, are you sure that's where she is?" Kim asked desperately.

"Stringer, you're making less sense than the canteen's Christmas menu!" Gene barked.

"If Alex is in an ambulance then why aren't you with her?" she demanded.

Gene's expression darkened as he stared at her. She could see from his face that she'd touched a nerve but didn't understand why.

"_Because_," he began dryly, "_I had to wait for someone."_

Kim couldn't understand.

"What? _Who?"_

"Guv –"

Almost on queue Jake's voice caught their attention and they turned to see a stretcher being brought slowly from the doorway. Gene held his breath. Was there a black blanket across it?

"_Fuck."_

Gene's use of the F word in General use was minimal. Using it made anyone stop and stare.

"What?" Kim whispered.

Gene didn't reply. Instead he began to walk slowly towards the paramedics who were carrying the stretcher carefully, with one holding an oxygen tank above the still, silent body on board and another talking on a radio. Kim froze for just a moment before she followed him, speeding up a little as _he_ did until the identity of the injured, agonised face before them became clearer to see.

"_Simon –"_

Kim's voice was high and horrified. His features were almost unrecognisable; cut, bloodied, bruised – but Kim would know him anywhere.

"_Oh my god,"_ she gasped, slamming her hands over her mouth, "Simon… _Simon!"_

Nine long years. Nine years since she had seen her best friend, save for sitting beside him, unable to say a word, in memory of a man in a Jarvis Cocker suit. She swallowed and told herself sternly not to start crying again but angry, upset tears forced themselves into her eyes. "What happened?" she cried.

Gene's face looked stricken. Simon's injuries were grotesque. He almost made Eddie's burnt corpse into the looker of the two of them.

"How…" he cleared his throat, not even sure what he wanted to ask, "is he… he's _alive?"_

"We're waiting for the air ambulance," one of the paramedics told him, sidestepping the question, "it's the best chance he's got."

Gene swallowed. He turned to Kim.

"This," he said flatly, "is the reason why I'm not with her."

"_Shit,"_ Kim whispered. She could understand now. But then what of her vision? "B-but are… are you absolutely _sure_ she's OK?" she asked.

"They're paramedics not pick-axe murderers," Gene told her.

Kim hesitated.

"You're sure?"

Gene stared at her, completely confused.

"Stringer, stop the questions, me mind's on other things right now."

"I just want to know if she's OK!"

"_Yes!"_

"_Guv!"_ Jake's horrified voice caught their attention again and they turned to see him flapping around in horror as a couple of uniformed officers helped a staggering, half-naked man to walk, "_something's going on."_

"_Plenty's_ going on and _none_ of it makes sense!" Gene told him.

"Someone's found a man tied up by the dumpsters," Jake explained, "says he's an ambulance driver. Someone knocked him out. Stole his clothes." He looked around where some other paramedics were looking annoyed and bewildered. "Seems like they stole his ambulance too."

Kim turned to Gene with a slightly unnecessary, accusing glare.

"Are you _really sure_ of that?" she demanded.

Gene didn't understand what she meant. He didn't know why she was so worried. He didn't know what she had seen. And most of all he didn't know why there seemed to be an increasing amount of flesh on display that day. But what he _did_ know was that suddenly he was very scared indeed.

"I think," he told Kim grimly, "that you should give me a proper explanation." He glanced back at the station, "before me brain blows up along with the building."


	7. Chapter 6: Of Binds and Bile

_**A/N: Just a warning, the rating will be rising to M in the next couple of chapters **_

**~xXx~**

**Chapter 6**

Robin wasn't sure what distressed him most as he began to come round; _the fact he couldn't see, the fact he couldn't speak or the fact he couldn't move. _His head throbbed and stung like it had been trapped in a vice. His back ached from being trapped in one position for such a long time. He could smell vomit and from the taste in his mouth it was most likely his own. He could feel the clothes around the lower half of his body were soaked and from the lack of pressure in his bladder he reached a horrible conclusion about its cause. He couldn't remember very much about the events leading to his awakening; he remembered dogs; lots of dogs. Dogs that shouldn't have been there. Dogs that had wandered in from nowhere. Dogs on fire. No, _not_ dogs on fire… _stopping_ the dogs from being set on fire. That was the thing.

_Shit,_ his lip was stinging, Oh _fuck_ the _fight_…

Suddenly feeling stone cold sober, the whole horrid night came back to Robin. All the beer, arguing with Simon, imparting to him a black eye of epic proportions, leaving Jake half undressed in the break room, chasing some random dog around. _Oh fuck, oh fuck,_ what the _hell_ had he been thinking?

He felt bad for fighting with Simon. He felt worse about leaving Jake half-undressed and telling him to wait there because the last time he told Jake to wait for him somewhere Jake had more or less proven himself more obedient than one of his dogs. Chances were, he might still _be_ there, explosions and all.

He struggled to sit up but his hands were tied behind him and he couldn't push himself upright. He tried wiggling his legs a little to move himself along but despite looking a little like a large slug he got nowhere. _Shit_, he felt terrible. It was more than the throbbing of his head from whatever had knocked him out, the after-effects of a glut of beers were starting to show too. His mouth was as dry as the canteen's coffers during sprout season and his stomach was burbling with alcohol. Where the hell was he? What the hell was going on?

Quite suddenly the blindfold was ripped from his face, leaving a slight material burn across his forehead and blinding him with harsh light. He flinched and tried to withdraw his head like a turtle going into his shell but there was nowhere to go. He squinted and blinked and saw a few outlines coming into focus as a voice began;

"_Well well. So much for the new station pin-up. If only your hormonal groupies could see the state of you now."_

_That voice._ It cast the most terrible fear into Robin. He'd know it anywhere. Immediately his stomach lurched and he feared he might be about to throw up again. The room was starting to come a little clearer into focus now, although Robin wasn't altogether sure that he wanted it to. He could see desk legs bedside him. He was lying on a blue carpet with a desk right next to him and a waste bin not that far away. He could see the skirting boards and the stark white office walls as well as the bottom of a door. But right before him all he could see were a pair of very shiny shoes. He followed them up, scanning up a pair of grey trousers and a dark coat that was currently being slipped down its wearer's arms and removed. As he saw it placed squarely over the back of a chair he finally too, the courage to look up to the face; the face of the man who'd spoken, the face he didn't even _want_ to see.

"Welcome back online, Robin."

Robin closed his eyes and forced himself to hold back a sob of despair at the sight of Keats's smug face. He drew back a little as the man took a step towards him,

"Well. You are in a mess," he began, "you just can't take a quick knock on the head. Chucked up all over yourself. Sorry, I didn't have time to clean you up." He shuffled a little closer, causing Robin to reel at the sound of his feet against the carpet, "and _then_," he continued in genuine disgust, "you must have pissed yourself on the way over. Couldn't hold it?" Robin closed his eyes tightly as he felt wretched tears of humiliation in his eyes. He remembered feeling desperate for the loo as he was attending the extra dog oddity. There wasn't much he could do about whatever happened while he was unconscious.

"Add to that the smell…" Keats stooped down like a bespectacled giraffe and took a long, unnerving sniff above Robin. "How much did you put away, Chief Inspector Thomas?" he took a second sniff and scowled. "And," he began, "I fucking hate the smell of TCP."

Robin's eyes opened again as he felt something prodding him hard in the guts and he flinched and whimpered. He found Keats's shoe was the perpetrator, attached to his foot, pushing him backwards.

"Not the first time you and me have been alone together is it, Robin?" he knelt down beside him and tilted his head to one side. "Nice little intro to the fucking family tree _that_ was." He could tell that Robin was working hard to keep his expression neutral. He didn't want to give Keats the satisfaction of seeing him in fear. "You know, this isn't nearly as much fun as I thought it would be," Keats grasped Robin's hair and pulled it so hard that he almost gave him whiplash, "it's really missing something when I can't hear you begging for your life." He furiously wrenched open the knot in Robin's gag then used his hair to thrust him backwards again. Robin coughed a little from the shock of suddenly having his mouth uncovered again. He swallowed and ran his tongue around his lips, flinching a little as he reached the split that Simon's fist had put in there a couple of hours earlier.

"Now, you can't blame _me_ for _that_ one," Keats smirked reaching out with one finger to touch the bleeding lip, causing Robin to reel back violently. "I didn't touch your pretty face. Just put a dent in that empty head." He felt for the lump that he knew was there, on one side of Robin's skull. Sure enough he could feel it. The damage a small fire extinguisher could do was far greater than he'd have ever imagined. He watched Robin flinch again and sharply drew in his breath. "Oh _shush_ now, you've had worse," Keats didn't even bother trying to reel in his smirk as he stared Robin in the eye, "I know that for a fact." He took great delight in watching Robin's Adam's apple rise and fall with an involuntary gulp. "Knife wounds, for example," Keats said quietly. He stared at Robin, desperate to get a rise out of him, silently longing for him to start begging him to stop or not to hurt him or to leave him alone but Robin just stared back in silence. Was he too scared to move? Or was it the opposite?

Glowering and anxious to provoke the fear in Robin that he was desperate to feed from he reached forward and ripped open his shirt, causing him to gasp and cry out a little as he struggled to pull himself backwards.

"Let me see it then," Keats spat.

"See what?" cried Robin.

"My handiwork," Keats sneered. Ever since the day he'd slashed Robin's chest in so many places he'd been dying to see the scars for himself, to remind him that even though he lost that particular battle he had left Robin in a reminder that he would never be able to forget; the reminder that round two could still come at any time. But as he yanked away at the material and sent the odd button flying into the air he found not scarred skin staring back but pattern and ink etched in Kim's beautiful hand. "_What the fu-"_

Robin's eyes moved downward for a moment towards his tattooed torso, then fixed upon Keats' Somehow he'd drawn courage from that moment. He'd drawn strength from the beautiful designs that masked Keats' evil actions.

"What?" he challenged, either bravely or stupidly, he wasn't sure which, "not admiring the handiwork after all, Keats?" thinking about the tattoos made Robin feel stronger, like Kim was beside him, "or was _that_ not the handiwork you expected to see?" Keats seemed frozen, like someone had pressed the pause button at an unfortunate moment and caught him with a stupid expression on his face. "I think she did a _fantastic_ job, don't you? Can't even see that half-arsed dot-to-dot puzzle you left all over me." He almost shook as his anger rose, remembering all over again the agony he felt as Keats's knife slashed his skin, "What's the matter, Keats? Not a fan of tattoos?" he swallowed and drew in his breath. "or too _much_ of a fan of the person who _drew_ them?" finally Keats's eyes moved from Robin's chest up to his face, his crazed and angry stare locked on Robin's eyes, "It helps to build up a close relationship with your tattooist you know, Keats" he hissed, almost forgetting for a moment that he was the one with his hands and legs tied, "_really_ close." He felt his anger growing, "Just think, if it wasn't for you and your fucking knife then I wouldn't even have these amazing designs. I wouldn't have laid there for hours… her hands all over me…"

"_You can shut your fucking mouth for a start," _Keats cried, grasping Robin by the hair again and pulling him forward so hard that he let out an agonised yell, "I don't want to hear about whatever the _fuck_ you think you mean to Kimberley fucking Stringer!"

"Why not?" cried Robin, "that's what I'm here for, isn't it? Why else would I be tied up lying on the floor of –" he glanced around him, "of what I presume is your fucking office…" he paused, "what, is the basement not good enough for me or something?"

"Basement's already occupied," sneered Keats.

Robin froze. He did not like the sound of that.

"By who?" he hissed.

Keats raised an eyebrow.

"By _whom_, Robin," he mocked "didn't your parents teach you grammar?"

"And here it comes," Robin whispered. He swallowed, "we're two sentences away from the genetics, aren't we? What do you want? An apology for sharing the same gene pool?"

Keats slowly got to his feet.

"Believe me, Robin, I haven't even fucking _started_ on that yet." He turned and began to walk towards the door which seemed to worry Robin more than when he'd been dragging him around by his hair.

"Where the hell are you going?" Robin cried and Keats glanced back over his shoulder as he opened the door.

"A good host doesn't spend all his time with one guest, Robin, " he spat

Robin began to feel extremely anxious.

"What do you mean?" he whispered.

Keats ignored his question.

"Don't worry," he began as he walked from the room, "I'll be back to continue our enthralling conversation very soon," he smirked a little. "And don't bother screaming. It's three in the morning . This place is emptier than Gene Hunt's fruit bowl."

With that he closed the door, leaving Robin alone with his fear, his pain and the stark reality that this might very well be the end for him, and whoever or whatever Keats had in his basement.

~xXx~

Alex's head snapped upwards at the sound of the door opening and her eyes turned to the side. A shard of light spilled from the doorway into the pitch black of the room below floors. Her back was bruised and the pain was almost unbearable but since she could move her legs she supposed her spine at least was alright. Her arms were fixed and tied behind her back to some piece of furniture behind her that felt metallic to the touch.

Slow, encroaching footsteps sent a feeling of terror through her body. Feet edged ever closer until they were right in front of her. She didn't let her eyes look to his face, not even for a second, even as he knelt in front of her and challenged her with his presence to look in his direction. Before she knew it there was a glass of water in front of her and for a split second she almost lost her resolve. Her eyes almost moved towards him but she held them away as he pulled down her gag and left it around her neck.

"Refreshments, Alex." Keats's voice sent her blood cold. She closed her mouth firmly as he pressed the glass to her lips and tried to make her drink. "Come on, you must be thirsty," he said, "living it up, celebrating election night… not feeling a little dehydrated after all those units, hmm?" he pressed the glass against her lips a little harder but still she wouldn't drink. "How about all that smoke and dust getting in your throat? Not made you feel a bit dry?" she turned her head firmly away and refused to acknowledge the existence of the water. She heard him give a frustrated sigh and sat the glass down on the floor before he got to his feet and started to walk towards a ventilation grate. "Never mind," he said, "if you're not thirsty you're not thirsty. What's that saying about leading a horse to water?" Alex finally looked up as she heard him removing something and then a squeaking noise as he began to turn a valve. "Funny how many useful things you can find in an ambulance, Alex. Quite the stroke of luck, you know." She looked away quickly as he turned around and stood up straight again. "You _sure_ you don't want anything to drink?" he asked but Alex stayed silent and kept her mouth firmly closed. He gave a chuckle and shook his head as she made his way back to the door. "Never mind, Alex," he smirked, "you'll soon feel different."

With a spiteful laugh he closed the door behind him, shutting out the light and the ventilation as he left her to breathe in the tainted air. Her hope of rescue was fading along with his laughter as he ascended the staircase and left her all alone.


	8. Chapter 7: Of Truth and Trauma

_**A/N: This chapter has been finished, edited and posted early as a thank you to a very special woman xxx**_

_**The rating rises to M from the next chapter. Huge, huge hugs and thanks to everyone reading and reviewing x**_

**~xXx~**

**Chapter 7**

As Gene stared at Kim, looking for answers Kim stared back, struggling to know what to tell him.

"Yer silence is scaring me, Stringer," he said grimly. He waited for her to say something but she could barely look him in the eye. "What do you know about Alex?" he asked, "apart from her bloody bra size now."

Kim shook her head slightly.

"Nothing for sure," she whispered.

"What do you _think_ you know?"

"I don't know."

"Then what are you _doing_ here?"

"I don't _know!" _Kim was feeling like a broken record but when it came down to it all she had were a lot of guesswork and speculation without knowing a thing for certain. Gene's eyes flitted between Kim's dark expression and the ambulance crew around Simon, trying desperately to keep him alive.

"Can you at least tell me," his eyes fixed on her darkly, "if this… _transfer_… is permanent?" He watched Kim swallow and look down, nodding very slowly. "And," he continued, "exactly how did you receive your transfer orders?" Kim's reluctance to look at him made him anxious. "Who put through the request?" He paused. "_You?" _she hung her head a little, not wanting to tell Gene for certain that she'd taken the step he suspected. "That's a pretty big move to make, Stringer."

Kim nodded.

"I know," she said quietly.

Gene stared at her, the implications were weighing heavily on the conversation. He didn't want to spell them out. Instead he cleared his throat and said,

"Few months back… just before Christmas… got a piece of lost property. Think it might belong to you." He paused as she finally looked him in the eye curiously. "Name block, DI Kim Stringer." He hesitated. "But I'm guessing it's not _my_ DI spot yer going to fill."

Kim completely sidestepped the question.

"I'm not a DI any more," she said quietly.

"Pierced the wrong person and got yerself demoted?"

"Promoted," Kim felt surprisingly anxious.

Gene stared at her feeling as though someone had pulled a rug from under his feet. "Bloody hell. _DCI Kim Stringer."_ He waited as she nodded, reluctant to say too much just yet. He realised he was getting no closer to finding out what he wanted to know. "So, _Ma'am,"_ he said with only a hint of sarcasm, "might I ask what you know about me fiancée and the missing ambulance?"

"Nothing for sure," Kim said quietly.

"I need more than that, Stringer," Gene told her.

"I don't _have_ more than that."

"Come on, Metal Mickey," Gene cried, "you cared about her enough to introduce her to _carpet cuisine!_ If she's in danger you'd better bloody tell me everything you know."

"I don't _know_ anything," Kim cried, "it could be nothing! I just had a few dreams... heard a few voices."

"No one _puts in for a transfer_ just because of a few lousy voices."

"Sam Tyler did."

That was the moment that Gene realised exactly what Kim had done to get there and how serious the situation was. He looked at her grimly.

"Where's Alex?"

"I don't know," Kim told him, "But I have some thoughts."

"Then share them with me."

"You mean like I shared your other half?" Kim got in with the dig before Gene had a chance. Before he could respond a paramedic came towards him.

"Sir, the air ambulance will be here in about a minute," she said, "are you travelling with Simon?"

Gene glanced at Kim, then back to the paramedic.

"Looks like another matter's come up," he said.

"Don't be fucking ridiculous!" Kim cried, taking Gene completely by surprise.

"You earned yerself a promotion and a dose of bad attitude at the same time I see," he narrowed his eyes at her.

"Go with Simon," Kim told him.

"At what point were you assigned superintendent?" Gene stepped forward and tried to use his height and bulk to intimidate her but Kim had been through too much to let that happen.

"At what point did you leave your illegitimate offspring to fight for his life on his own?" she cried, "don't be fucking stupid, Hunt!"

Gene's anger started to heighten.

"It's 'Hunt' now, is it?" he glowered.

"It is as long as you're leaving Simon by himself," cried Kim. She felt a terrible pang of sadness inside her as she thought back to her days in Gene's world the first time; staying with Simon, their friendship, their bond. The sight of his battered face came back to her and made her flinch. "Listen," she tried to calm her own temper as well as Gene's, "I honestly don't _know_ that Alex is in any danger. But I _do_ know that if Simon dies," her voice hitched on that word, "you're going to spend the rest of your life regretting not being there."

Gene swallowed and hesitated. There was a peculiar lump in his throat. He didn't like that. In fact, he _hated_ it. Emotion wasn't something he did. He was starting to feel somewhat confused about the way he was looking at Simon. It had been four months since the truth about their genetics had come out and from initially being unable to comprehend such a thing or look at Simon as anything other than his one friend he'd gradually accepted the connection on some level. It wasn't as though he wanted to suddenly be a father figure but he'd found himself very slowly slipping into it occasionally, such as advising him on a better punching method. He wondered if perhaps the fact that he should have been father to a baby by now had influenced that. Was he, on some level, looking for a replacement? But every time he started to wonder, he chastised himself for it. That was edging too much into girly feeling territory. He couldn't deny though that he was feeling a kind of devastation when looking at Simon that he'd never felt in his life.

He looked back at Kim. Her expression was sincere. His eyes closed for just a moment, then he nodded.

"You'd better find her then, Stringer," his voice cracked as he spoke.

Kim nodded.

"I swear on my life," she whispered.

"The one you've just taken?" he watched her turn pale as she looked away. He supposed that was a bit much. He took a deep breath. "Just make sure she's safe.

"I will," Kim nodded. She glanced around, "I might need help."

"Take yer pick of a bad bunch," Gene waved his hand, "what's mine is yours –"

"This is going to be another dig about Alex, isn't it?" Kim scowled, hands on hips.

Gene huffed.

"It's a bit hard to take yer seriously, Stringer, when you look like a stunt double from a bloody Spice Girls video."

_"I did not choose this get up!"_ cried Kim.

"Just bugger off and find Bolly," Gene instructed her.

Kim nodded. She swallowed and steeled herself.

"Right," she said as she began to dash away then turned and scurried back.

"Now what?" scowled Gene as he heard the air ambulance drawing closer.

"Uh... Sorry for shagging Alex," Kim sad quickly.

That was the strangest apology Gene had ever received and was most likely the strangest one that Kim had ever given.

"What do you expect me to say to _that?!"_ he cried.

"_I_ don't know!" cried Kim.

"Then just find the bloody woman before we _both_ lose her, _alright?"_ barked Gene.

"Yes Guv," Kim said without thinking.

Gene smirked a little as she began to race away again, but that soon faded as she came back.

"What _now_, Stringer?" he demanded, "any more of me nearest and dearest you've accidentally waltzed into bed?" To his immense shock he found her hands diving into his pockets and he spread out his arms as though being frisked. "What the bleedin' hell are you doing _now_, Metal Mickey?" he demanded, "trying to feel up every DCI in this station?" but to his horror she located his flask, pulled it from his pocket and helped herself to a long, desperate swig. _"Do you bloody mind_?" he cried, snatching it back and sending a jet of droplets to the ground.

"Oh _I_ see!" Kim cried, "you're fine with thinking I'm trying to _cop a feel _but the second I take a sip of your precious scotch you come down on me like a ton of bricks?"

"Too close to the bone, Stringer," Gene grimaced, turning to the crumbling station, "And besides, a man's scotch is his own private property," he told her gruffly before staring at her hands in concern. He noticed for the fist time how badly they were shaking and snatched one up. He stared at it, then into her eye as she snatched her hand back feeling self-conscious and ashamed. He began to feel concern creeping in "You're not looking at yer best, Stringer," he said quietly.

Kim stared back.

"Neither are you, Guv."

"I've been in a burning building, what's your excuse?" Gene challenged.

Kim swallowed.

"I _jumped_ from one," she whispered, then she turned and moved away before she could show the fears that were building under the surface.

Gene tried to fight the urge to head after her and demand to be told every tiny detail that she knew or suspected about Alex's whereabouts but as he watched the paramedics preparing Simon to be transferred into the air ambulance he knew he couldn't let him down for a second time. He'd put Alex above Simon and now Simon's life was hanging in the balance. He wasn't choosing Simon over Alex this time around either but he owed him. And besides, he had a horrible feeling that if he stormed into whatever situation Alex was in, guns blazing, that he would only put her into more danger. It wasn't a decision he would normally have made but something didn't feel right. He couldn't explain it. He felt as though this was out of his control.

_This is not my call._

~xXx~

Kim's eyes scanned the car park.

"Don't know where to even fucking start," she hissed to herself. She needed help and fast so she grabbed the first person who came towards her and pulled him to one side. "_You."_

"What?" Jake had no idea what was going on

"You'll do," she told him, "what's your name?"

"I'm detective sergeant Jake Dawson," he introduced himself.

"And why is your shirt undone?" Kim asked with a frown.

Jake's skin slowly became hotter than the fires that had burned in the station. He turned away as his cheeks turned crimson and muttered,

"Buttons got blown off by the bomb." He frowned, "who are _you_ anyway?"

Kim took a deep breath.

"I'm DCI Stringer," she said, "I need you to help me locate the stolen ambulance. You'll have to speak to the driver right away. I need a description of the man who attacked him."

"Right," Jake began, about to run in his direction but Kim called him back.

_"Wait,"_ she said, "I need more faces on this case. Who else is good?" without waiting for a reply she pointed to a woman sitting on the ground nearby, her back to them, "what about her?"

"What, Marci? Oh, no, _no,"_ Jake took a step back and shook his head fiercely, "she's just been through a trauma tonight."

"Haven't you all?" Kim frowned.

"She lost someone," Jake shuffled a little, scratching his head, "kind of. Her... almost boyfriend." He shook his head, "a friend of ours died in the blast. They were just… just starting to get somewhere..." he felt his stomach flip over as he realised Robin was still missing. _Talk about 'almost'. Shit,_ he still hadn't turned up. He closed his eyes for a moment as he remembered the expression on Robin's face as they came close to exchanging more than pleasantries. He tried to get his mind away from that subject. The strange DCI was looking at him funny though so he had to pull himself together. "Uh, there's got to be someone around here that you can…" he paused as he spotted someone in the distance and pointed, "Ahh – that woman there? The brunette in uniform, with the dog? She'll help you."

Kim frowned.

"Where?"

"Over there," said Jake as he began to take a couple of strides towards her, _"Hey – Shaz –"_

Kim's heart felt like it stopped dead in her chest with that word, that moment, that second…

In the distance a young woman began to turn around and Kim instantly did the same. She couldn't see her… couldn't be _seen_… didn't _dare._

"_Oh my god,"_ she whispered, her legs pacing instantly away to a safe distance, "_Shaz..." _

_Her first love._

How the _hell_ was the world going to explain her sudden return from the dead with a whole decade of aging on her shoulders?

She began to wish quite desperately that she had fought a little harder to keep that scotch.


	9. Chapter 8: Of Noise and Names

_**A/N: As things are growing darker so the rating has risen to M from this chapter**_

**Chapter 8**

Robin desperately fumbled at the ropes around his wrists but he was working on them blindly and had no idea if he was making the knots better or worse. It wasn't the first time he'd found himself tied up and that had been at the hands of Keats too, tethered to Kim on a crumbling barge that already had the grimmest history to tell. He remembered that even though they were in such a terrifying situation he felt so much safer being with her. He remembered trying desperately to untie the ropes back then and even though he had one free hand it was impossible. Keats had a skill in tying knots. Must have been something he learned at the Hell Scouts or something. He gave a loud growl of frustration as he tried and failed once again to loosen a knot. He was getting nowhere fast.

It really wasn't helping that his co-ordination was seriously out. Between the whack around the head and the after-effects of a small brewery he was seriously battling the odds. The beer definitely wasn't the right drink for him. He felt nauseous, bloated and full of gas.

"It's like the morning sickness all over again," he mumbled without noticing he was no longer alone.

"I'd ask you to explain that but I seriously don't want to know," Keats entered in a flurry of sneers and Robin pulled himself back as close to the leg of the desk as he could. He swallowed as he looked at Keats momentarily then looked away again as fast as he could. The less he looked at _that_ one, the better. He heard Keats's footsteps edging slowly closer and as much as he tried to ignore them he couldn't stop himself from glancing back for a second. "Looks like I have some time to kill while my other guest relaxes for a while," he told Robin.

That did it. Robin had no choice but to look at him.

"Who have you got in that basement?" he demanded.

"No one you'd be interested in," Keats told him, "since they neither have a penis nor a pierced arse."

"Kim doesn't have a pierced arse," Robin said quite unnecessarily. Not like Keats cared either way. He narrowed his eyes at him as he took a seat making Robin feel a bit like the warm-up act before some big event. "So it's a woman then?" he asked.

"I see you've been revising anatomy," Keats raised an eyebrow.

"Who the fuck have you got down there?"

"I told you. No one you'd be interested in."

Robin swallowed nervously. He looked away and closed his eyes. He didn't want to think about who it was but he couldn't help it. He could make a pretty good guess at who it might be. As far as he knew Keats had no interest in Marci or Shaz which left one probable subject. It made his blood run cold to think of it.

"It's Alex," he whispered, "isn't it?"

Keats shrugged, knowing his flippancy was taunting Robin more than anything else.

"What did you say to me once, Robin? _It's all the same to me. Man, woman or goat."_

Robin looked away.

"I _thought_ I'd seen your picture at the petting zoo," he said angrily.

Keats used his toe to prod Robin like he was taunting an animal in a cage.

"So it seems you and I have so much more in common than I thought," he began, "you'll forgive me for not fully welcoming the new branch on my family tree."

"Family's not always about blood and genes, Keats," Robin hissed.

"What _is_ it about then?" Keats challenged, "kippers and croissants? Do me a favour, Robin. Got the same blood, you and me. Makes my skin crawl."

"_Ditto,"_ Robin spat.

"No need for that, you look like a llama," Keats told him. He leaned a little closer. "and anyway, we have more in common than calling the same person _dad_."

"I don't call _anyone_ 'dad'," Robin hissed.

"Funny, wouldn't you say, that we share two notches on our bedposts."

Robin felt horribly sick as he turned as far away from Keats as his ties would let him.

"Your notches are chemically influenced," he tried not to let his voice shake as he spoke. He swore he could hear Keats gloating at him.

"Not all of them, Robin. Not always." He leaned forward. "Simon's got a real thing for the dark hair, hasn't he?" He watched Robin carefully but his expression didn't change. "Or maybe it's the eyes. Or both. Funny how we never saw it before, isn't it? Like two peas in a pod."

"Difference is, one of us is mouldy," Robin hissed.

"Oh, you haven't forgotten how to speak then?" Keats raised an eyebrow. He could see he wasn't getting anywhere trying to bait him about Simon. That left the other notch. "So how did you work out where to stick it?!"

"Your arrest warrant?" Robin asked angrily.

"You and Kimberley." Robin froze visibly. To Keats's delight his expression grew strained. "Must have taken some working out. Need someone to draw you a map, did you?" he smiled as he shuffled to the edge of his chair and leaned in closer. "What was your first time like then, Robin? All nervous and shy were you? Surely you remember?" Robin pulled together all of his will not to react. Keats was pushing every damn button that he could to get a response and Robin wasn't going to give him the satisfaction. "I remember _my_ first time with Kimberley." Those words brought Robin an inch from vomiting on the carpet. He flinched and held back with a sickening belch that showed Keats he'd finally struck a goldmine of torture. He moved in closer, encroaching on Robin's ear. "She laid there in front of me," he whispered, "sprawled on her back, waiting for me. I could feet her hot skin when I moved on top of her. She was so much softer then. The curves. Everywhere." He gave a deep, horrible laugh in Robin's ear. "I can still remember every last one." He moved his hand in front of Robin's face. "And if I close my eyes," he hissed, "I can picture her, right in front of me. And I _do_ picture her, Robin," he watched as the tied man started to tremble with fury, "I think of her often. And I'm sure you don't need me to spell out how that ends."

"_Right –"_ the anger in Robin overflowed as he desperately tried to launch toward him, forgetting for a moment all his binds and landing in a slightly muddled heap face-down on the floor, listening to Keats's laughter as he got to his feet and shook his head, still laughing all the while. "That's it, Robin, you have a nice lay down. I'm going to check on my other guest."

"_You sick bastard!"_ Robin screamed after him as he left, "You leave her alone! You fucking leave her alone!"

But his cries only went to encourage a man with evil running through his veins where blood should be.

"I'll be back, Robin," he called out, "I'm sure you'll be in need of refreshments by then." With a wide smile he looked at Robin one last time. "How about _Another Cup of Coffee?"_

With that he turned and left, humming the song that sent Robin to despair as he went.

~xXx~

Alex pulled and tugged on her binds, desperately trying to free herself but not only were her hands tied too tightly but she was in so much pain that every movement hurt. Her head started to swim just a little. She knew that there was something in the air and she knew who'd put it there. She tried very hard to breathe as little as possible and to fight it. _It's only gas and air. Just concentrate and you can beat it._

The sound of the footsteps that headed down the stairs sent a feeling of terror through her body that settled in her stomach like a boulder. She knew what was coming. It wasn't unfamiliar either.

"_Alex,"_ Keats's voice made her close her eyes involuntarily, like knowing the horrible part of a movie was coming up. "Had some time to take in the atmosphere?" Alex said nothing, letting her head loll a little to one side. "Nice to see you so relaxed," Keats smiled, "I've been hoping that you'd remember how to unwind." He crossed the room slowly, every footstep seemed to take a decade. The torture seemed to stretch out before her as she waited for the inevitable. "You're looking," Keats swallowed, suddenly hesitant as he stopped before her. He stared at her face, unused to the younger features and body that had come back with her when she'd said goodbye to 2012. "Looking stunning. _As ever_." All of a sudden his demeanour changed. He stared at her and felt anxiety growing inside of him. He'd always had an eye for her and he'd tried to take her so many times, but the only time he'd succeeded it was not the Alex he wanted. It wasn't the Alex that he'd become infatuated with way back in 1983.

But _this? This_ was the Alex he wanted. And she even had that better body. This was everything he wanted in one package.

He ignored the fact that this was a pure lust thing. He ignored the fact that his earlier conversation with Robin was floating through his mind. He ignored the fact that he couldn't stop thinking about other people. Alex was the one tied to his cabinet and Alex was the one who would be entertaining him right there and then.

"I've been looking forward to this part," he breathed against her neck as he leaned closer and slowly pressed his lips against her skin. It was all she could do to stay still and silent. She had to stop herself from reacting, from crying out, from tensing or struggling. She needed to keep full control. She heard Keats humming a song under his breath. She thought that was strange enough by itself but she quickly realised that it was Robin's trigger song. That sent a moment of panic through her. What was he singing that for? The only explanation was that she wasn't the only 'guest' at Fenchurch West. She remembered Keats saying one or two things that made her wonder while she was in the back of the ambulance. She hadn't seen anyone but she was strapped so securely she could only look straight ahead.

She remembered something Robin had told her once, how to overcome the effect of the trigger song by blocking it out by concentrating on the pain of getting his first tattoo. It was the reverse of what she usually told her customers, when she usually recommended focusing on the music to block out the pain. But for Robin it had worked the other way around, using the memory of the experience to block out the song that triggered memories of the very worst day of Robin's life.

She felt his fingers brush her cheek and wanted desperately to scream or to run or to cry out. But she tried the very same technique, concentrating on the memory of the needle against her skin, the sound of it buzzing away, the soreness of her skin as the needle worked it over and over. She let that memory consume and overtake her while she silently conditioned her body not o react in any way to Keats's touch as his hand trailed down her neck and to her chest. She swallowed as his fingers played around her breasts, reaching for the buttons of her blouse which almost shook her resolve.

_Just hold on,_ she urged herself, _a few moments more. Don't move. Don't react. _

"Alex?" he stopped grasping for her chest and gave her a pressureless slap to the cheek, "anyone at home in there?"

_Shit_… she was _too_ motionless. She knew that now. When the gas and air had been used on her before she could still move and was still conscious, to a degree, but was unable to control her movements properly and her mental state was severely affected. She let her eyelids flutter open and closed and gave a low murmur which seemed to sate him and he smiled at her.

"I've been waiting a long time for this," he whispered as his hands ran down her body and to her legs which were still tied securely. Well, he'd not be getting anywhere fast with those bound, would he? Access denied. He glanced one more time at her face as she let her eyelids remain half open and moved her head as though it was too heavy for her neck to support. With one last smile he worked at the knots and untied her ankles, raising his hands towards her belt, but that was the cue that Alex had been waiting for. Gathering together the strength left in her injured, ailing body she kicked out hard at his face, her high heels meeting squarely with his jaw and knocking him backwards with a pained yell.

"_You'll be waiting a lot longer still!"_ she cried, desperately trying to kick him away as he came back for more. She thrust one foot at his neck but her shoe fell off and Keats grabbed her by the ankle.

"You stupid bitch," he spat, trying to contain her legs in one hand so that he could tie them once again but she kicked and writhed and flailed until he'd been kicked so many times that he knew he had to stop and wait. She needed more time, more gas and air. He gave a growl of frustration and threw the rope at her face. She drew in her breath and turned her face away as it struck herm narrowly managing to avoid crying out with surprise and pain. She wasn't going to give him that satisfaction.

As he got to his feet she could see to her horror the swelling inside his trousers that told her in no uncertain terms that he had been ready to take exactly what he wanted from her. The anger that boiled in his veins added to that knowledge. She tried to shrink away as he began kicking at desks and cabinets.

"_Do you know how long it's been, Alex? Do you know how long it's been since I had someone? One fucking year!"_ he jumped forward and grasped her hair, yanking her head towards hi accompanied by a scream from her, "don't you think I deserve my night of fun? Hmm?" he pulled her gag back to her mouth then pushed her head back against the cabinet where it struck the metal with a clang and she closed her eyes, her ears ringing. She listened to the sound of him walking away and the noise of the canister being opened up a little more. "Tonight's the night, Alex. You think Tony Blair's the only one who's ending this night with a huge fucking grin plastered across his face?" he stormed to the door and turned around. "You're going to give me the best night of my fucking life," he sneered, "_Bolly_," he added with spite.

That word more than any other turned her stomach to ice inside her as she shuddered at his damn audacity. No one but Gene used that name,_ no one._

He gave one last bitter laugh before slamming the door behind him. Alex closed her eyes and internalised a sob that spoke of the greatest fear in the world. She could already feel her mind becoming increasingly clouded. She prayed for a miracle she wasn't going to get.

_**~xXx~**_

_**A/N: **_

_**I'm going through a period of bad depression. I have been for some time. The last week was the first time I could vocalise it, which for me means the first step to getting through it. I might be quiet for some time. Please don't be offended if I respond less often than usual. When I'm having good days I'll chat and reply as normal. Bear with me the rest of the time. Please don't ask how I am, I appreciate not being reminded about it. I just didn't want anyone to think I was being rude. Also, please don't tell me not to write/forget about updating, writing is the thing that's pulling me out of it. I didn't write for several days and felt much worse. Writing is a thing that has to be done. Thanks for understanding x**_


	10. Chapter 9: Of Talk and Intention

**Chapter 9**

Gene had spent the ride in the air ambulance in perfect silence. In fact, he was fairly sure that _Simon_ had said more than he had and Simon was in an extremely deep comatose state. Gene had spent the whole journey staring at him while the paramedics did their best to keep him stable and alive. There wasn't much of him to look at that resembled the Simon he knew. His head looked deformed, swollen and battered. Gene flinched as he remembered his journey skipping through time in another world, witnessing the deaths and the accidents of those who he knew so well. He remembered seeing Simon with the dent in his head from the server.

"Poor bugger," he mumbled under his breath, "at least yer have a manly reason for having a hole in the head this time."

That was the only thing Gene said on the entire journey.

As they arrived at the hospital there was a flurry of activity around them as someone informed them that theatre was being prepared.

"You've got five minutes," one of the paramedics told Gene with a hand on his shoulder.

Gene didn't quite follow.

"What do you mean I've _got five minutes?"_ he demanded, "giving me a lethal injection or something?"

"With your son," the paramedic explained before they left Gene with a certain amount of privacy.

Gene hated to admit that it took several moment before he even realised they were talking about Simon. He felt fairly guilty for that. But he'd only known for such a short time, it still felt unreal to think about it.

"'_Son'_," he scoffed slightly, shaking his head, "pain the bloody backside, more like." He glanced at Simon, what he could see of him. He didn't like this, not at all. This was one of those situations that made him want to run for the hills.

He bowed his head slightly so that he didn't have to look at Simon as he said;

"Funny. I always thought it would be easier to talk to you when you can't answer back. But this is even harder, knowing you can't respond with a _'this reminds me of that episode of The X Files when…_'." He pulled a face like someone who'd found a job sucking lemons for a living. "You know, I've got me perfect opportunity right here, haven't I? Could say anything I bloody well want to you and you've got no right of reply. Could be fairly useful," he hesitated and shuddered, "especially now I've taught you how to punch properly." He flinched, "not that you haven't caught me right on one or two occasions already."

He drew in a very deep breath feeling unsteady suddenly. He supposed the shock of the blast was only just starting to sink in.

"Lost me station, Shoebury," he mumbled, "it's fallen down around me ankles. Bolly's god knows where. Got metal Mickey of all people off on a mission. Am I going to lose me best friend too?" he cursed himself for saying such a thing. "Sound like I'm in the school ruddy playground playing conkers," he mumbled. He shook his head. "Hate to say this… but I'm used to having you around, Simon." He closed his eyes. "Not just to send off for lattes or when I need someone to take the piss out of. Good having a bit of company. No offence to Bols, but sometimes you need a bit of male bonding time. And yer not like a proper poof," he added, not sure whether he had just created the biggest backhanded compliment ever or not, "s'pose you made me change me views a bit. Though we could do with weaning you off of QPR and onto a proper football club."

He sank back down again, his eyes darting around to make sure he wasn't going to be overheard before he said,

"This what it was like for you, was it? When I had me fun adventures off in two thousand and bollocks? I was the one with the hole in me head. What did _you_ say to _me_ then?" he gave a shrug, wishing he'd heard whatever it was Simon had said to him. "Wake up and bloody tell me so I can say it to _you_, alright?" but Simon just laid there. What had Gene expected? His condition was critical, and as a mob of medical experts came rushing towards them Gene was reminded just how delicate his situation was. He turned to Simon, facing the damage head on for the first time. It made him swallow back nausea, the state of the man. How was he going to survive this?

Was he going to survive this?

"You'll be OK, Son ," he mumbled gruffly and stepped back to let the doctors and the surgeons take over. Simon's life was in their hands. All Gene could do now was to pray they could hand it back to him.

~xXx~

Kim drew back against the wall around the corner, out of the view of the young brunette she hadn't seen in almost a decade. She became aware of how heavily her heart was pounding. It almost hurt. As she leaned against the cold, rough bricks she pressed her hand to her chest, feeling it beat. _God_, it was going _crazy_. She knew there was more than one reason behind it; a mix of seeing her first love again when she'd never thought it possible coupled with the shock of it and then the fear of being seen by _her_ – altogether it had left her feeling highly emotional and her heart was illustrating the point perfectly.

"_Fuck_," she whispered as she tried to catch her breath. She closed her eyes as she leaned backwards. So many memories came back to her; the night they met at the club, the way they danced the night away, the buzz she got deep inside every time that she saw Shaz's beautiful, warm smile, the way she felt the first time they kissed, the night she slipped her back to the sofa only to get sprung the following morning and then that night, the most wonderful night – the L word had passed between them.

"_Shit –"_ she shook her head as she thought back to it. It was so long ago now and so much water had passed under the bridge since then. Kim knew that for Shaz it had been a far shorter time. She also knew that Shaz had been told she was dead. She couldn't let her see her, there was no way.

She felt sure her heartbeat was getting stronger. It thumped away so hard in her chest that she could hear it in her ears as she breathed in and out, leaning against the wall. It didn't sound like the usual thumping of a pulse that she might hear in her head now and then, it was louder. It sounded more like listening to a baby's heartbeat on a Doppler, so loud and vibrant.

She reached up and let her other hand join the first against her chest as it pounded and thumped and she found her head spinning. All of a sudden she felt dizzier and weaker, as though something was overwhelming her. There was a sudden intense pain that struck her in her chest and stole a pained gasp from her lips. She sank down to the ground, the rough wall scratching her back on the way, and sat on the floor, her knees pressed against her chest as she gasped for breath and listened to the loud heartbeat in her ears as it grew to a crescendo, so loud that she almost couldn't take it, and it felt for all the world as though her whole body might just burn up in an instant. She heard a sudden flat tone in her head, so loud that her ears were actually hurting, and then a steady beep until a hand on her shoulder pulled her out of the horrible haze she'd fallen into and as though waking from a nightmare her eyes opened wide and everything was normal once again, except for the racing of her pulse.

She glanced up in shock and found a concerned Jake standing there,

"Ma'am?" he frowned, "are you alright?"

Kim gulped for air, trying to soothe her anxiety. She wasn't sure what had happened or how she had ended up on the floor. In fact, she remembered very little of the last few moments at all. Slowly, shakily she climbed to her feet and dusted herself down.

"Sorry," she mumbled quietly.

"Are you OK?" Jake asked again, "you look… maybe it's the shock… I should check you over…"

"I'm fine," Kim took a step back. Why the hell was the scruffy guy with his shirt open going to check her over? "you're… the first aider?"

Jake nodded.

"Yes."

Kim bit her lip. The last first aider she'd known injured people to practice on and applied tourniquets 'for fun'. She shook her head a little.

"As long as you're better than the last first aider we had –" she caught herself and flinched –"_they_ had." She shook her head. This was just making her feel worse. "Look… DS Dawson?" Jake nodded, "did you get the statement from the driver?"

Jake nodded.

"I did," he said, handing Kim a sheet of paper. She scanned it as he explained in person, "male, described as middle-aged, dark hair, wore glasses, medium build, tall from what the driver could tell. Whacked him with something metal. "

Kim flinched at the description. It was all too familiar.

"_Keats_," she whispered, a horrible mix of anger and fear raging inside of her. "Listen, Dawson, I have to get moving. I know who it was and where he is now. I need to get after him before it's too late."

"Too late?" Jake repeated, "for what?" he paused, "for whom?"

Kim hesitated. She didn't dare say too much in case she was wrong.

"It.. it doesn't matter, but I'll need your help," she said.

Jake glanced around.

"I… I don't want to be disrespectful," he began, "but I need to stay with Marci. I can't leave her on her own. She's the one who –"

Kim nodded as he trailed off.

"Lost someone," she sighed, "Right."

Jake nodded.

"Eddie," he said and Kim froze. That name was as familiar as hell.

"Eddie," she whispered. She turned to Jake with wide eyes, "Eddie _Ashworth?_ The _stapler_ guy?

"You knew him?"

Kim closed her eyes for a moment. She had been the first one whose clothes Eddie had attempted to 'wish away'. She'd also been the one to take him in hand and try to calm him down, help him to accept that the world was not a dream and he had a reason for being there. All of a sudden that felt like training. She felt a hasty sense of sadness.

"Yeah, I knew him," she said quietly. _Fuck, Eddie_. He'd been one of the 'floaters'. Had he died in the real world? Had he made it home? Or was he at the pub? She drew in her breath. "OK, Dawson, that's fine, you should stay here. What I need is a radio, and for you to stay on the other end of it." She hesitated, feeling her stomach flip over as she added, "and… the woman you pointed out to me…"

"Shaz?" asked Jake "I mean, WPC Granger…" he shook his head, "sorry, that should be _police sergeant_ Granger."

Kim blinked.

"Oh?" she said innocently.

Jake nodded.

"She just got a promotion tonight. Before the blasts."

Kim nodded slowly. It felt like she'd arrived in the middle of a big shift. That didn't surprise her. She knew the world experienced them now and then.

"Don't mention me," she said.

Jake looked understandably confused.

"Wh-why not?" he frowned.

Kim wasn't sure herself. How the hell was she going to cover for this one?"

"This is a very delicate operation," she said quietly, "there are lives in danger and the fewer people who know what's happening the better. This is extremely serious, DS Dawson," she stared at him, "do you understand?"

Jake nodded anxously.

"Perfectly."

"Good," Kim swallowed, trying to keep her hands in her pockets so he couldn't see them shaking, "I need a radio. I'll be in touch when I need help. I might need back up, or I might need an ambulance." She paused, "one with _real_ paramedics this time. I'm not sure. But I'll be in touch when I need them. They'll be called to Fenchurch West. Alright?"

"What?" Jake frowned.

"Don't ask, just do it!" Kim barked, watching Jake reeling a little from her tone.

"Fine, alright," he backed away, his hands in the air as though surrendering.

Kim watched him racing away in pursuit of a radio, then closed her eyes and tried to catch her breath. This was it. _Confirmation_. Keats had them in his clutches.

"_Not for long,"_ she whispered, just trying to believe that.

It felt like her life had been leading to this moment. This was her purpose. It always had been, but now her leap had delivered her right to the moment. She wasn't about to let them down.

_Just hold on. I'm coming, Rob. I'm coming, Ma'am._

_Showdown._

**~xXx~**

_**A/N: There are only about 4 or 5 chapters left of this fic now (plus an epilogue) :( I think this has been my favourite to write, and I'm going to be very sad to see the end of it. When I post the epilogue I'm going to be making an important announcement. Thank you to everyone who is reading and enjoying this story, and a heads up that the next chapter will be very dark.**_


	11. Chapter 10: Of Blood and Envy

_**A/N: Please remember this fic is now rated M for a reason!**_

**~xXx~**

**Chapter 10**

Robin wasn't the kind to give up on anything, with the possible exception of his burgeoning career in lion taming. For as long as Keats was out of the room he worked on the ties that bound his hands together, little by little, trying to loosen whatever he could. Progress was slow but suddenly he felt them start to shift a little. The knots began to feel a little different and the ropes a little loose around his wrists.

"_Come on,"_ he mumbled as he worked on them. Something shifted and all of a sudden a knot almost fell apart. "Oh _yes!"_ but there were more to work on and his fingers moved as fast as possible. _*Not planning to spend the rest of my life as your chew toy, Keats," _he mumbled, but before he had the chance to set himself free the door flew open and Keats burst in with the fury of a tsunami.

"_The fucking –"_ he began, finishing his sentence not with a word but a slam of the door. He reached out and grasped the pot of pens from his desk, throwing it with such force that it shattered against the wall scattering stationery like shrapnel

"What the _hell?"_ Robin couldn't stop himself from blurting.

Keats's furious glare fixed on Robin for a second and sent his blood cold but he was in too much of a rage to focus his energy on _Robin-hatred_ right then. He took a swipe at everything else on his desk and knocked it all flying. Papers and files flutted to the floor like a blanket of snow as Keats kicked furiously at a chair sending, it back across the room, tumbling over on its way.

"_She's going to fucking pay for that!"_ he cried as he picked up a random tape that was lying on a cabinet and threw it across the room with such force that the case shattered sending fragments and tape across the office. Robin tried to duck as some of the bits flew in his direction. _Some poor sod's final moments were on that tape_, he thought to himself. Now their sticky end had met with a sticky end. Keats's temper was terrifying and Robin desperately wished that he could hide away from it. He tried to move back but there really wasn't anywhere to go so all he could do was to watch Keats exploding and try to work out what had sent him into meltdown.

"This is something to do with your guest in the basement, right?" he braved a guess but regretted it as soon as eyes of fury turned to him. He swallowed involuntarily.

"_She's no fucking use to me yet!"_ he spat as though Robin was already in on the conversation, "a whole _year_, Robin. A whole _fucking year_ with _nothing_. This is what I fucking _deserve!"_

"Easy on the F word, you've turned onto Gordon Ramsay," Robin said but his jibe was more from nerves than bravery. He gave a short gasp of horror as he noticed Keats had a particular issue in the trouser region and the truth began to dawn on him with the most intense of horror. "Oh shit, _no_… what did you do to Alex?"

Keats grasped the waste paper bin and threw it at Robin which he narrow turned his head to avoid the brunt of. When he looked back, Keats's furious sneer was an inch from his face.

"Well nothing _yet,"_ he spat. _Yet_. That was possibly the most horrifying word that he had ever heard. Keats hadn't finished either. "Why do _you_ have to be fucking _family?"_

With an intense feeling of terror Robin realised what Keats meant. If they hadn't been related he was going to have been second choice. He started to shake as he remembered that fateful day on the barge when he stopped Keats from raping Kim and became the second choice then, too, stopped only by the photograph that unveiled a secret both men would rather have remained hidden.

"_That's the only reason you didn't do it,"_ he breathed with full realisation, "_isn't_ it?" Keats's angry eyes were fixed upon him, "You really would have –" he couldn't finish that sentence.

"Fucked you?" Keats completed it for him.

Robin swallowed.

"Not the word _I_ was going to use," he whispered.

"Yeah, I would have," Keats spat at him, "you screwed up my chance with Kimberley. And," he sneered, "there wasn't a petting zoo nearby."

"You do know I was only ever joking about the goats, right?" Robin was gibbering now with nerves.

"But yeah," Keats ignored him, "if our little _family tie_ hadn't come out if the woodwork, you'd have been a perfect substitute." He looked Robin up and down. "Not bad looking. Of course, that makes sense when you look at who you're related to."

Robin felt a little vomit rising in his throat which he had to work hard to swallow back.

"I'm getting plastic surgery," he hissed.

Keats stepped forward and pulled Robin's gaping shirt a little wider. It was still hanging open from Keats's attempt at checking his previous handiwork.

"Of course," he began, "you didn't have all of _this_ back then."

"The fucking scars?" Robin tried to scramble back as his fingers continued to work on the knots, "no, I _didn't!"_

"The muscleman look," Keats corrected. He prodded Robin in the pecs and stared him in the face. "so what's all this about anyway? You can't tell me it's for Kimberley's benefit. Not exactly what she goes for, is it?" he trailed his fingers across Robin's face and Robin thought for a horrible moment that Keats was about to gouge his eye out but all he did was to trace his fingertip around Robin's eyelid which made him want to throw up and then take a very long shower. "Now _this_ is more like you, _isn't_ it, Robin?" he said, studying the trace of eyeliner that was still present despite being egged and fighting with Simon. He'd clearly been asking Alex for advice on the best kind to survive a day in the Geneverse.

"Fuck _off,_ Keats." It wasn't the wittiest comeback of his life but it was all Robin could think of right then.

"_This_ is more you," Keats said as he finished investigating the eyeliner, "_isn't_ it, _Rob?"_ he used the name venomously. knowing how few ever had the honour of being close enough to Robin to use it, "because you have to remember… your arrival gave me interesting insight, Robin…_ I've seen inside your head,"_ he tried to stare him out but Robin didn't flinch_, "I know all your dirty little secrets", _he fixed a stare in Robin that could have downed planes, _"even the ones that Kimberley doesn't know."_

"There's nothing about me Kim doesn't know," Robin hissed.

"The ones even _you_ don't know." Keats sneered.

Robin swallowed but held his nerve.

"You've resorted to gibberish," he hissed.

"I'm still making more sense than your _muscles_," Keats told him as an instance of relief flashed unexpectedly over Robin's face that Keats didn't notice, "so what's it all about? Not because you want to be more rugged, is it?"

"No," Robin fixed a glare on Keats, "it's so that when I'm a bit tied up I can do _this –"_

With the knots finally loosened, Robin yanked his hands apart wide enough to slacken the ropes enough to shrug them away then with his freed hands he took a swing at from face with his right fist and followed up immediately with a blow to the guts with his left. In a fit of slight bravado and relief Robin screamed out _"motherfucking YES!"_ at the top of his lungs as he heard Keats give a pained '_Oof' _noise but he was still left with the problem of what to do with his bound ankles. Should he try to untie them at top speed or bounce away with them still tied together? He tried to push himself to his feet but was never going to get very far and despite his attempts at launching himself at Keats the rage inside the evil man exploded so hard that he pushed Robin to the ground and pinned him there with one hand against his throat while with the other he punched his stomach so hard that Robin gave the most horrific cry that Keats had ever heard and choked so hard it looked like he was going to vomit again.

"Congratulations, _Robin_," he screamed, "you just achieved the impossible and made me even fucking _angrier!"_

Robin's eyes bolted as he saw Keats lift his fist in the air and turned his face away as far as he could but he couldn't avoid the blow to his cheek. He tried desperately to keep the pain inside, not to scream, not to cry.

"Why do you hate me so much?" he found himself yelling. It seemed like a stupid question but Robin couldn't stop himself from asking.

"Why do I _hate_ you?" Keats mocked, "it would be faster to list the things I _don't_ hate about you. _Oh brother of mine."_

"I can't help sharing a father!" Robin cried, "and I'm not him!"

"And don't I fucking know it?" cried Keats. He leaned in closer and sneered, "You were the first and the only one. You know that, _Rob?"_ he spat out the name he had no right to use.

"first and only what?" Robin cried.

"The first and only one to refuse me!" cried Keats, "Everyone else has been more than happy to co-operate with me… Simon… Alex…Kimberley… Eddie… and then there's _you,"_ Robin flinched at the look of fury on his face, "I show you I know where you're from…. Offer to show you the doorway back… give you that _little glimmer_ of hope -" he showed Robin his finger and thumb with a small gap between them, "but you don't bat a fucking eyelid, do you?"

"To your false promises?" Robin gasped as the pressure on his throat started to become unbearable, "no, why should I? I already knew you were full of lies."

"Should have known then there was a reason why you were buckling the trend."

"What?"

"My fucking _long lost brother,"_ Keats spat. He finally drew backwards, removing his hand from Robin's throat, leaving him gasping a little for air, "Fantastic. There I was thinking I had no family. But I did. And it was _you_. It had to fucking be _you!"_

"I'd rather be related to Simon's _crocodile_ than to you!"

"And then you had to turn up here, rubbing my nose in it!"

Robin hesitated.

"In what?" he demanded.

"Reminding me of everything I never had!" Keats screamed, his face turning the colour of a post-box as his anger grew to uncontrollable proportions.

"What? You're crazy," Robin stared at him, confused and aghast, "you're fucking crazy, Keats. I remind you of what you never _had?_ Like _what?"_

"Like a _father!"_ Keats screamed.

_"What?"_

"I was _one fucking year old_ when he walked out on me!" Keats screamed, "you had him for _fifteen fucking years!"_

Robin's eyes widened. Could Keats _really_ be holding him to task over their _father?_

"You _stupid…."_ Robin hesitated as he tried to work out what part to correct first, "for one thing, he never walked out on you, your mother took you away from him! I've seen the documentary, Keats!"

"You believe _everything_ you see on TV, do you?"

"Your mother took you away from him so that you could lead better _lives!"_ screamed Robin, "and if mine had done the same then maybe..." his voice hitched as a tidal wave of sorrow came upon him, "maybe she would still be here now." He swallowed, the memory of his mother's lifeless body flashing before him. He had to put it out of his mind. He couldn't let his ghosts come back to haunt him. Not when the devil was doing a very good job of torturing him in the meanwhile. "How can you be envious of _that?"_ he gasped, "you were saved from years of hell!"

"At least you had a fucking father figure!"

"One who left me and my mum feeling like we were the scum that crawled out of the ocean!" cried Robin.

"Oh _boo hoo,_ poor little Robin," Keats cried, "let's all weep for the poor soul. You and your fucking perfect little life."

"What?"

"The brother with all the breaks."

_"Breaks?"_ Robin cried, aghast, "What do you _mean_ 'the breaks'? Have you _no_ idea about my life?"

"I know _everything_ about your life!"

"Then you must have been watching the _cut-for-TV version_!" screamed Robin, "because I certainly don't remember a version that was _oh so perfect!"_

"Oh no?" spat Keats, "what about you and your perfect little love-life?"

"So perfect that we had less than a _year_ together before I was _murdered?"_ Robin cried.

"_Not just Kimberley!"_

"What?"

"_Why did you have to have him first?!"_

Robin froze, his mouth open in shock as it dawned on him that Keats was referring to Simon rather than Kim.

"What?"

"You _had_ to fucking have him first, didn't you?" he grasped Robin by the hair and pulled his head up just to slam it back against the ground. "What chance have _I_ got after you? Huh?"

"You want _Simon?"_ Robin choked, the force of the blow to his head almost knocking the sense from him.

"_The perfect fucking brother!"_ Keats screamed.

"You're deluded!" cried Robin.

"The work, the glory, the body, the prettyboy face –"

"You've not got a fucking _clue_… not a clue," cried Robin, "whatever you think you know about me you have just about everything wrong!"

"_No, Robin,"_ Keats spat, "_wrong'_ is what _my_ life is. Such as it is. You have everything I want, Robin! Everything!"

Robin couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"Oh _yeah?"_ he cried, "our father made my life a _misery_… he killed my _mother!_ I spent thirty one years of my life hiding in the shadows, lost my boyfriend, died and lost the love of my fucking life, even lost my _dog!"_ his face was frantic now as he saw the anger on Keats's face growing, "You want my life?" he screamed, "_here, take it!"_

Keats glowered as he lifted a chair

"_I've already got it,"_ he hissed as he brought it down hard over Robin's head.

As Robin dropped to the floor, unconscious and still, Keats stood up and drew in his breath. Soon enough he would be back to further abuse the man. But there was another, pressing matter that he needed to deal with. Alex should be ready by now. He didn't want her too far gone to remember the moment.

"I've got your fucking life, Robin," he hissed, "it belongs to me now. To do with as I please. Enjoy your rest."

Turning on his heels, he left the office and shut the door behind him. It was time to turn his attention to guest number 2.


	12. Chapter 11: Of Love and Safety

_**A/N: Editing this chapter actually forced me to get out the brandy bottle and the tissues**_

**~xXx~**

**Chapter 11**

Kim was exhausted and panting by the time she got back to Fenchurch West. She had thought along the way several times that she should have taken a car but didn't trust herself not to crash with the fear, the stolen scotch and the shakes. She also thought that she should have asked someone to take her and to drop her off but she didn't want to cause any unnecessary attention by allowing a Fenchurch East car to take her to Fenchurch West.

On the other hand she worried whether she was being stupid in her decision. What if she was too late? What is her journey there took too long? There was no way of knowing either way. It had been a judgement call. She just hoped her judgement hadn't been skewed by the strangeness of the situation.

As she found herself once again in the almost deserted car park of Fenchurch West she stared at the station and swallowed. She remembered it better than she liked to admit. She remembered how many days she'd spent being drawn there by whispered promises in her ear from a man who used gas and air, smoke and mirrors, promises and lies to take what he wanted from her without giving her anything in return except for an unplanned pregnancy and years of nightmares.

"_I'm not that same little girl any more, Keats,"_ she hissed into the breeze, "this is _my_ time."

She crossed her arms and walked with speed toward the building, trying not to acknowledge what she had seen from the corner of her eye; the ambulance tucked almost completely out of sight. If she hadn't been so prepared to see it then she would most likely have never even noticed it.

"No," she mumbled quietly as she got to the doors. She stood outside them, staring, trying to work out how to gain access when suddenly they opened up before her like a flower blooming too quickly. She gulped and felt herself shudder from head to toe. That gesture terrified her. She knew exactly what it meant, and although it only highlighted that her mission was a success the truth was something that churned her stomach.

She took in a very deep, slow breath and closed her eyes momentarily. This was it. There was no going back now. The moment she crossed the threshold she knew what it meant.

"_I have no choice,"_ she whispered.

Somewhere inside that building were Robin and Alex, and they were relying on her, not that they even knew. She wasn't going to let them down. With that final determined thought she opened her eyes and strode onwards.

~xXx~

Alex's head spun and her vision filled with specks of light as she realised that the door was opening again. She felt her neck struggling to lift her head as it flopped and lolled to one side. There was a gag in her mouth but she couldn't have said much even if she wanted to. Her body felt heavy and numb, almost like she had pins and needles all over her. It felt as though what was happening wasn't even real, but inside she knew that it was.

And it wasn't the first time.

Immaculately pressed trousers and very shiny shoes stepped through the doorway,

"_Hello Alex."_

The moment she heard that voice again her guts folded in on themselves and every muscle in her body went weak from the fear. She gave a pained sob that was muffled by the gag, too far gone to care about not showing weakness to the monster before her. She couldn't even keep her head up straight as he walked slowly towards her.

"_How are you feeling now?" he asked, "Bit light headed?"_ every step closer he came caused her to cry a little harder, "_Maybe you need a lie down."_

Alex closed her eyes tightly. If she couldn't stop him then at least she wouldn't have to see him, and then in the flashbacks and nightmares she would suffer ever after at least she would never have to look at his face.

~xXx~

Kim felt a rotten sense of nausea descending over her as she walked through the station that was still so familiar to her. It had been nine years, _nine long years_ since she'd set foot through those doors but the route to his office was engrained in her mind as though someone had scratched the map out in her mind for eternity.

"_I know you're in there,"_ she hissed, "_I could see your fucking light on."_

She'd seen the window to his office lit up from the car park. She knew it well. She remembered the days when she would walk anxiously into the station grounds; a bunch of files in one hand, usually a cigarette or alcohol in the other. She remembered the horrid compulsion she felt to return day after day, the way that Keats had fucked with her brain, screwed her up so badly that she had never quite found a way to beat his hold.

"_This is it, Keats,"_ she whispered, "it's _my_ turn now."

One foot after another, one step at a time she made her way up the staircase. There was a tremble in her walk but she ignored that. Anyone would have been doing the same under those circumstances. Bile churned around inside of her. The knowledge of where she was and what she was doing there almost tore her apart internally but she pressed on. She was almost there now. She could feel it.

_CID._

_Fenchurch West CID._

_Good fucking god,_ it was like stepping back in time as she peered into the deserted office. There was an empty desk. It had been empty way back as far as her first trip to the world, too. In fact she recalled the desk well. He'd been saving it for her, for the job offer he never fully made. He'd never filled it. He'd never allowed anyone else to take that spot and Kim knew why. Deep down inside, Keats still viewed her as 'his'. He still viewed her as a part of whatever his ultimate plan was. In his head, he still had a hold over her.

But in his head she was still a lost, scared little girl who wanted to find her way home.

"You are going to be in for one fucking big surprise," she spoke quietly but meant what she said with total certainty.

One step at a time. One foot in front of the other. That was the most that she could do. She walked slowly toward the door at the far end of the office;

_DCI Jim Keats_

_Fenchurch West CID_

She swallowed. The light was on and she could hear a low moan coming from within. She didn't know what she would find on the other side, only that the idea of finding out scared the shit out of her. She closed her eyes and began to breathe slowly. _Fuck,_ what she would have done for a scotch right then. Why the hell hadn't she stolen Gene's flask when she had the chance? She swallowed and breathed out with force. This was it. She had to just _do_ it. Whatever lay on the other side of the door , she needed to know.

There was a large, unopened ream of paper sitting beside a printer. It might not have been on the top ten list of most lethal weapons but she'd dropped one on her foot once and knew it was heavy enough to cause a bit of damage. Swung at full pelt toward Keats's head, it could be even more effective

"_It's time,"_ she whispered.

Encroaching on the door, little by little, she came to a halt outside. This was it; Now or never.

_One more deep breath._

Then with as much force as she could find, she kicked at the door and it swung open, allowing her to charge inside, the paper held aloft. But there was no sign of Keats, .no sign of the evilness that had drawn her to a place that terrified her. No sign of the eyes that had caught her in their gaze many a time.

What there was… what there _was_ was a battered and bloodied face. A crumpled, pain-filled body. Tattered clothes; soiled, sodden, torn apart. A broken soul. An anguished expression. A man who had lost all hope.

A gasp of shock.

"_Rob –"_

Robin was barely conscious. The repeated blows to his head had left him severely concussed, disorientated and delirious. He'd been slipping in and out of consciousness since Keats had left the room, hallucinating his footsteps and screaming with pain. As he realised whose voice he'd heard he thought in the first instance that it was another hallucination. He'd been having plenty of those as it was. This one was crueller than most, to hear the voice he'd longed to for so many months. It angered him so much that he let out a loud, fitful sob and curled up a little tighter but the voice sounded again;

"_Oh my god, Rob, what has he done to you?"_

The second time there was an added layer to the voice; the emotion, the fear, the sound of someone whose love for him filtered through in every word and he just knew that it couldn't have been part of his imagination and yet still he couldn't bring himself to believe that it could be true. Believing was the first step to getting hurt when he found it was all in his head.

Kim didn't know how she kept herself together when she took in the full damage that Robin had taken from Keats in his most violent, manic mode of all. She stumbled as she ran frantically to him, hardly daring to breathe. It had been months since he'd been taken from her so cruelly and her life had been plunged in a never-ending dark spiral of despair. Knowing too much about Gene's world, she had expected to never see him again until the drastic action she had taken left he squarely in the middle of 1997. Even despite the blood and the bruises she knew his face in an instant. Never had she felt her heart beating so strongly or her pulse racing so fast as she did the moment she stumbled to the ground beside him and tilted his ailing head gently toward her.

The pain Robin felt from the movement of his head was momentary, disappearing the moment he laid eyes upon the woman he'd longed to be with again but who he thought he had lost forever. The moment his eyes met hers he felt his heart reacting in ways that he couldn't explain, thumping flipping, stopping for a moment, speeding right up – if he hadn't been staring Kim in the face he might have suspected a heart attack but looking upon her features and being caught in her stare he was left in no doubt what was behind his strange reaction.

Instantly his eyes widened and his jaw dropped. His mouth moved repeatedly as though he was trying desperately to speak but no sound was emerging from his lips.

"Shhh, Rob, it's OK," she whispered as she gathered him in her arms and gently tried to pull his head into her lap. She saw his hand moving and took it firmly, squeezing it for dear life, closing her eyes tightly shut and puling it to her lips where she pressed a longing, tender kiss that filtered all the way through his body like anaesthetic. Her touch took away so much pain, her presence turned his heart inside out. Taking strength from her arrival, he scrambled up in her arms as fast as he could and threw himself at her to hold her as tightly as he could.

_"Kim,"_ he gasped, his voice shaking, "Kim, oh my _god_, Kim, it's _you_… is it you?" for a moment he doubted himself, "please tell me, Kim, is it you? _Is_ it you?"

"_Yes_, Rob," she whispered as she held him tightly, "yes, it's me, _it's me,"_ she clung to him tightly and held his face against her cheek. She closed her eyes and felt a tear trickling down from the corner of each, tickling her face as they rolled onto his shoulder. She knew she was shaking, _he_ was too. She felt her fingers tightening around the fabric of his torn shirt, gripping onto him as though he might just fade away if she were to let go. "Rob, what has he _done_ to you?" she whispered, "where is he? What has he done?"

"Kim… _Kim…"_ Robin whispered again and again as his words dissolved into tears. Overwhelmed, in agony and terrified for both their lives he clung to her. "Oh god_,_ I'm sorry… I'm so sorry –"

Robin's words made no sense to her.

"_You're_ sorry?" she repeated, "Rob, for _what_?"

"You can't _see_ me like this," Robin whispered, his voice choked by tears "I'm so… I'm in such a state… I –"

"Rob, I don't care," Kim whispered as she held him close, "I don't fucking care." That wasn't completely true. She _did_ care, just not in the way Robin meant. She could have found him with a green face, cosplaying Kermit the Frog for all she cared. But what she _did_ care about was that he was so badly hurt and had been through so much, quite clearly. The stench of vomit hung thickly around him from where Keats's original blow had caused him to throw up in his sleep, his face was so badly bruised that it was swelling in several places and from his ripped clothes it was clear that Keats had been looking for the scars he'd previously unleashed upon him.

"_Please_ don't look at me," Robin whispered, "I'm so _ashamed_…"

"Robin, I don't _care,"_ Kim whispered, clinging to him, "but he's hurt you… he's hurt you so badly and I –" she gripped him a little tighter, "I _tried_ to get to you sooner… I was too late to stop him hurting you," he could feel the tears falling from her face to his body as she clung to him and he held her right back.

"_You're here,"_ he cried tearfully, "_fuck_, you're _here_... he said you couldn't… Gene said you could never come back…. He said you couldn't come to Fenchurch East…"

Kim flinched at his words and felt sick as the reality of her situation smacked her in the face. She didn't reply to his statement instead she simply held him tighter, barely able to breathe as tears threatened to stop her. She slowly pulled in a breath to calm herself a little. She just wanted to sit and hold him all day but she knew they weren't safe. She stroked his hair softly, scared of hurrying him and pressed her lips tenderly to his forehead.

"_Kim, I love you,"_ he breathed.

"I love you too, Rob," she told him softly, "and I'm going to get you out of here," she drew back and stared right into his eyes, holding his face tenderly in her hands, rubbing his cheek softly with her thumb, "I need you to listen to me, OK?" she felt him nod slowly. "I'm going to get you out of here and radio for help. I'm getting you an ambulance. You must go with them."

"No –"

"You'll be _fine_, Rob," she whispered to him, "I _promise_ you."

"_Please_ don't leave me," he begged.

"I _have_ to," Kim whispered as the tears began to build again, "Alex is missing."

"_Alex!"_ Robin's eyes bolted and she felt him start to shake which terrified her.

"Rob, what's wrong?" she whispered.

"He's got her in the _basement!"_ Robin cried, "and he's angry and desperate… he's… I think he's been using gas and air."

The bottom fell from Kim's stomach as she heard those words. It took all the willpower she had to hold it together and not panic at the thought of Alex in his clutches. _God_, she felt sick suddenly. The thought of Keats and his intentions scared her senseless. She remembered the bleedthroughs she'd had; Alex, tied and gagged, Keats's fingers clawing at her buttons. She had to shake them from her mind and stay focused if she had any chance of stopping them becoming a reality. "OK, Rob, I'm going to get you to safety and then I'm going back for her, OK?" She saw him nod slightly, wincing in pain. "Do you think you can walk?"

Robin drew in breath.

"Ankles are tied," he whispered.

"_Shit,"_ Kim had to leave Robin to sit by himself as she attended to his remaining binds. Her hands were shaking so badly that she could not master the knots but with access to a pair of scissors that Keats had knocked from his desk in fury she managed to hack and prise away at the ties until Robin was free. She slowly helped him to his feet, almost panicking when he wobbled and stumbled so hard that he damn near fell flat on his face. _"Rob!"_

_"I'm sorry,"_ he whispered shamefully.

"Don't be sorry, Rob, just be OK," she whispered.

As she clung to him tightly and began to help him slowly from the room she knew that she had to make the most of every moment that their bodies touched and every second that she could see his face. She knew that this wasn't going to be the way things would stay forever. Once he and Alex were safe then she would have to face the full consequences of what she had done.

But just for now she simply closed her eyes and surreptitiously slid a hand against his chest to feel his heart beating. She knew that same heart was going to be breaking all too soon.


	13. Chapter 12: Of Horror and Hope

_**A/N: Please be aware that the themes in this chapter are extremely dark and difficult. More notes at the end of the chapter.**_

**~xXx~**

**Chapter 12**

Kim was drained and scared by the time she'd managed to help Robin down two flights of stairs and out of a back exit. She felt extremely guilty for what she was about to do but she needed to keep him safe

"Rob, you won't like this but I'm going to have to leave you by the dumpster," she told him, "I'm sorry. I'm _really_ sorry, I know this stinks…. In more ways than one… but you'll be out of view, away from where I think Keats might go and it'll be easier for me to tell the ambulance to find you."

She helped him slowly sink to the ground but he caught her face in his hands and stared her in the eye.

"_Kim,"_ he whispered. His eyes were full of unfallen tears and his head full of words that he didn't know how to say. All he could think about was that fateful day when Layton's bullets had robbed him of his life and them of their future, and the gradual breaking of the news that Kim would likely never be able to be with him again. Yet now, here she was. He didn't question how she made it there, he only concentrated on the fact that she _had. _

Kim stared right back, deep into his eyes, almost into his soul. She felt her legs weakening, the gaze they held between them almost took her breath away as she thought about all the nights she'd been scared to go to sleep because she didn't want to dream about those dark eyes gazing back when she always knew that waking up to find they weren't there beside her was too painful to bear.

Her hands trembled as she reached toward him, mirroring his action; cupping his face so gently as though she could never let go. She stared right back at him, the warmth and the love between them every bit as strong as the day they'd been parted by life and death.

"_I know,"_ she whispered. There were too many things that Robin wanted to say to her, so many that he couldn't even begin to express them. But she knew. Kim knew anyway. Every inch of her trembled as she closed her eyes and placed upon his lips the very softest kiss, but she knew she had to go. Time was running out. "You'll be safe here, Rob," she whispered, "please don't move… stay right here… help will be on its way."

She reached for her radio as she scrambled to her feet and turned around, pulling her face from Robin's grasp. He felt his heart aching just from the sight of her turning away.

_"Kim,"_ he called after her but she didn't turn back to him. She _couldn't_. Robin was safe but Alex was still waiting to be found and she knew that if she looked back at him again she would never be able to leave his side again.

"_Dawson_," she barked quickly into the radio, "that help I asked for. I need an ambulance to the rear car park of Fenchurch West. There's a seriously injured male beside the dumpsters against the building. Over."

There was a pause and some static.

"Male?"

"It's Ro -_chief inspector Thomas_," Kim flinched as she tried to dissociate her emotions from the situation.

This time there was a heavier pause.

_"Robin?"_ Jake sounded strained.

"Yes," said Kim, "so you know him?"

The third pause was even longer.

_"Uh, yes,"_ Jake's voice was stilted and awkward, _"how… seriously injured?"_

"Just get the ambulance here," Kim demanded, "let _them_ make that assessment, OK?"

"_Is he conscious?"_

Kim reached the doors of the station. The last thing she wanted to do was go back inside, but she had no choice.

"Yes," she whispered, "he's conscious, but it looks like he's been beaten about the head. At the very least he has a concussion."

"_Shit."_

That was a less than professional response. Kim frowned for a moment, but she didn't have the time to ponder it any further.

"It's confirmed that Alex… _DCI Drake_… is on the premises," she said, her heart racing and almost stopping her from talking. She swallowed, "please warn the ambulance that there will be two casualties and to send a second vehicle if necessary." She sighed, "or to use the one abandoned round the side of the building."

With that she put her radio away and slipped back through the opening doors. One down and one to go.

~xXx~

Keats was hungry. Starved of sex for a year, he was as desperate as a wild animal stalking their first prey. He knelt down before Alex and stared upon her face, absorbing all of its beauty. Her features were encased in a mask of fear, but then fear itself was beautiful. At least it was to Keats. He found it positively erotic. The sideways smile that broke out as he gazed upon her fearful face made her turn icy cold from head to toe and she shut her eyes firmly again.

"_Alex,"_ he whispered as he reached toward her buttons, "I always knew one day we'd be here again… _you… me_… can't keep away from me, can you?" The moment his fingers closed around the top button Alex tried to kick the life out of him but he was wise to her this time and grasped her legs, pushing them together and holding them between his knees firmly as he went back to the job in hand. No matter how much she writhed and struggled he wasn't going to let her put him off. "Always _were_ a feisty one, weren't you, Alex?" he hissed. He seemed to like using her name, as though using it made him feel powerful, as though he was in control of her… _owned_ her. The top button popped open and so did her eyes. She tried to scream but with the gag in place it was muffled. He smiled and shook his head. "There's no point screaming anyway," he told her, "there's no one else here. And even if there was, we're down in the basement. No one comes down here." He looked her in the eye. "No one with half an ounce of sense, anyway."

His fingers moved to the second button and her protests increased but she was firmly pinned down and couldn't do a thing. She couldn't stop herself from looking as he worked his way down her blouse, a button at a time. She immediately regretted it, immediately resented herself for it. Why did she give in? Why did she look? Now she was going to have to live with the memory of his hungry eyes focused on her chest forever as he soon unfastened another button, pulled the bottom of her blouse from the top of her trousers and ripped the last few fastenings apart. She gave a pained and terrified squeal at the motion, one which elicited a roll of the eyes from Keats.

"I thought you would be more relaxed than this by now, _Bolly_," he said, causing her to cry fitfully as he used that name, "perhaps this stuff isn't as good as my gas of choice. Bloody NHS corner-cutting if you ask me." With her hands tied behind her and to the handle of the filing cabinet there was no way to remove her shirt or bra so he settled for unfastening the clasp and pushing the silken underwear above her breasts which he ghosted his fingers across, licking his lips disturbingly.

"_You're beautiful, Alex,"_ he told her as her writhing and crying reached a crescendo, "wasted on the likes of Hunt." She squeezed her eyes tightly closed as she felt his lips touching her where they had no right to be. She strained and struggled but now her head was swimming more and more and her fight was fading when all of a sudden she felt his finger pressing hard into her stomach and gouging at her as though trying to scoop out her skin. Her eyes bolted and she gave a muffled scream as she saw what he was focusing on; the little circle with the G that had travelled with her from 2012.

"As if it wasn't bad enough you let him sink a bullet in you and leave you scarred," he spat, "you let _Kimberley_ brand you with his fucking _initial!"_ She looked at his face and saw it brimming over with fury. He wasn't sure what part he was most angry about; the fact that Alex had a permanent reminder of Gene on her body or the fact that she'd become a part of what he saw as some kind of strange, incestuous Fenchurch East tattooing cult along with Kim and Robin. She didn't think she had ever seen him looking so angry.

He flashed back for a moment to Alex's hospital room in 2011, when he'd first seen that mark while taking a trip to the body of Arthur Layton. Somehow he'd managed to forget all about it. Seeing it again made him fill with venomous intent.

Enough was enough. He'd wasted enough time. He had to put the tattoo out of his head and concentrate on getting exactly what he wanted. He reached for the buckle of her trousers and began to unfasten it with speed and despite her attempts at thrashing around too much to let him there was no way she was going to stop him.

"_Hold still, Alex_," he hissed as she screamed and cried, when all of a sudden as the belt flipped open and as he ripped down her zip, her gag worked loose and she found herself free to scream. One yell and a hand was over her mouth, silencing her, while his eyes fixed upon hers. "I _told_ you," he hissed, "it doesn't matter if you scream. No one's going to come running, There's no one here to hear you."

He took his hand from her mouth to pull down her trousers and her underwear, Alex thrashing and struggling every step of the way. With every inch that he pulled them down she felt more exposed, more vulnerable and absolutely terrified. As he tossed her clothes to one side she shut her eyes again. This time she wasn't going to open them, not for anything, but the sound of him pulling down his zip filled her with an unspeakable agony inside and she found herself screaming something, one word, and not a word she could have ever expected to find on the tip of her tongue.

_"Kim!"_ she screamed unexpectedly. She didn't know why; Kim wasn't even in the same plain of realty, let alone within screaming distance, but the name wouldn't leave Alex alone. "_Kim, please, help me!"_ she cried at the top of her voice.

"Shut up," she couldn't see Keats as she kept her eyes closed so tightly but she could almost picture him grinding his teeth in anger at her use of Kim's name.

As she felt him coming closer all she could do was to let her pleading dissolve into uncontrollable tears. The darkest moment of her life or her death had arrived.

~xXx~

Kim was fairly sure that she was imagining things. She was hearing voices in her head. She had to be. She thought she could hear someone calling out her name in distress but who even knew she was there? She shuddered; the situation must have been getting to her. She hated where she was. She hated being in Fenchurch West, And she hated the reason she was there. Her head was playing tricks on her.

That didn't change the fact that as she came closer to the stairs leading down to the basement she could hear screaming. _Actual_ screaming, no doubt about it. She swallowed as she heard the screams dissolve into tears and a terrible realisation hit her.

_I'm too late._

She panicked. Now that she was here she didn't know what to do or how to stop what she knew in her heart was happening below the ground. She could feel her pulse quickening and her breath seemed to be shorter and didn't do very much good. _Oh fuck, not a good time for a panic attack_. If only she had that scotch.

Her eyes scanned the corridor. She bit her lip as she tried to work out what to do for the best. There was one plan that started to form in her mind. One possibility. She took a deep breath and knew she just had to go for it; there wasn't time to think on it for too long. From the side of the corridor she grabbed a chair, turned it around and used one of the legs to break the glass over the fire alarm. The deafening noise that started as a result was phase one.

_So far, so good._

The difficult part was still to come.

~xXx~

Keats wasn't going to stop for the alarm. He didn't care if he burned to death with the station crumbling down around him at that precise moment. If there was a fire blazing somewhere then it was surely a good way to go. But the moment the sprinkler system kicked in and began to douse the basement with cold water it was a step even beyond anything Keats would put up with.

"_What the fucking hell -?!"_ he growled as he was forced to retreat and get to his feet. Yelling and swearing, he fumbled for his trousers and pulled them on. _"Someone's going to fucking pay for this!" _he cried, "fucking sprinkler system, next time the station can just burn!" he ignored Alex's continuous cries as he yanked up his zipper and managed to catch _Little Jimbo_ within the metal teeth. "_Argh, fuck!"_ he screamed, quickly pulling it back down and causing himself a second blast of pain, "_Fuck!_ Fuck! Fuck! Someone is going to fucking pay for this with their fucking _life!"_

Jumping around in agony, he forced his fly closed and bounded up the stairs, two at a time, the water dripping from his hair down to his face and half-blinding him as he went.

Stumbling out of the door, the last thing he expected was a pair of chair legs in the guts and he found the breath knocked out of him by seemingly wayward furniture. He gasped painfully and tried to stop the phantom chair from pushing him backwards but he had been taken so much by surprise that he was in no position to stop it. He couldn't even see who was wielding the chair, all he knew was that one minute he had a grin bigger than Tony Blair's; the next he was drenched, _unable_ and thrust into a cupboard by a couple of chair legs.

The cupboard door closed as he toppled over and landed squarely in a bucket which became promptly attached to his backside. The amount of swearing that left his mouth put South Park to shame. In the space of one minute he'd gone from being on top of the world to the bottom of the happy-pile.

~_xXx_~

Kim slid the chair beneath the door handle as she watched it moving all the time that Keats tried desperately to open the door from the inside. She knew it wouldn't hold him forever but she needed enough time to stall him and that just might do the job. With water soaking her clothes she began to descend the staircase, recalling with anger the times that Keats had led her down there and used her for his own ends. She felt nauseous and angry as she thought about it but had to put those thoughts to one side. Alex needed her now.

The moment she caught sight of her, Kim felt as though her whole heart had split down the middle. There was a physical pain in her chest as her eyes fell upon the sight of Alex, still tied up, mostly naked, crying inconsolably. As the sprinklers began to fade out and gave a last splutter or water Kim found herself beginning to cry too.

"_Oh my god,"_ she breathed, so quietly that Alex didn't even hear in her distress. She knew she had to get to her. She had to run to her, she had to show her that she was safe. "_Ma'am –"_ her cry pulled Alex's attention her way and despite her sobs increasing the sight of Kim rushing in her direction injected Alex with an instance of relief like she had never felt before. She thought at first that she was hallucinating, that the gas and air had really started to get to her but the closer Kim came to her the more obvious it became that she was real.

"Kim?" she gasped breathily, the sobbing stealing her voice.

"Ma'am, it's me," Kim told her as she dropped by her side, "it's _me_, I'm here… I'm _here_, Ma'am…. I' so sorry…. I'm so _sorry_, Ma'am…"

Alex's face creased up as she dissolved into a second flood of tears, this time made of a marriage between the horror of what she had been through and the relief that Kim was there beside her.

"Oh god_, Kim,"_ she cried desperately, "Kim, you –"

"I'm here."

"You _can't_ be here –"

"I am, Ma'am, it's me," Kim's own tears fell copiously down her cheeks. She laid her hand on Alex's arm to show her that she was real, _"I'm here. It's me_. I'm going to get you to safety, I promise you."

Alex gave another fitful sob, which she tried desperately to reign in but it was hard to control the desperation and devastation that she felt through every inch of her body.

"_Kim,"_ she cried, "Keats…"

Kim bit down hard on her lip and used every drop of willpower in her body to stop herself from crying as hard as Alex.

"_I know,"_ she whispered as she scrambled to her feet and examined the ties around Alex's hands, "I'm so sorry, Ma'am, I did all I could…. I'm _sorry_…" she swallowed as she tried to work on the knots. These were less complex and had already started to loosen with Alex's struggling. She managed to loosen them enough to pull Alex's hands free which she held tenderly as she dropped by her side again. She squeezed them and rubbed them with her thumbs as she whispered, "_We'll get out of here… there's an ambulance in its way…"_ she looked up at Alex and into her eyes for the first time, a myriad emotions swirling around behind them. She felt her heart sink heavily inside her as she stared into her eyes and the truth of her own situation came forcefully back to Kim for the first time. She let out a loud sob that seemed to surprise Alex and made her jump. She squeezed Kim's hands back worriedly.

_"Kim?"_ she said anxiously.

Kim began to shake terribly. It was all too much; too big, too terrible for her to take.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, "Ma'am, I'm sorry."

Alex didn't even know what Kim was apologising for. When it came down to it, neither did Kim. But right then all she wanted was to feel safe and secure, warm, loved. After giving all that she had, Kim had come to the end of her strength. She'd given up her life and thrown herself into the dark side of a world so far away.

Kim's sudden weakening and her shaking brought more tears from Alex and without hesitating she reached forward and gripped Kim in her arms. They clung to each other for as long as they dared, holding on for dear life in a night that had devastated them and everyone they knew.

"Kim," Alex's voice was broken as she whispered, "how did you get here? Who did this to you?" but Kim's trembling only increased and she stayed silent except for her sobbing. Alex didn't dare ask again; all she could do was to hold her, drawing as much from Kim' s embrace as Kim was from her.

Eventually Kim wrestled her emotions under control and drew away, looking at Alex in shame and embarrassment.

"Shit, ma'am, I'm so sorry," she whispered, "I'm sorry, you need me to be the strong one."

"Kim…"

Kim wiped her eyes on her sleeve but since that was ringing wet from the sprinklers it didn't do a lot of good. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She had to pull it together. "There's an ambulance," she whispered, "it should be here by now. We need to get out of here. The chair won't hold him forever."

"Chair?" Alex's head spun as she found herself unable to comprehend anything outside of the horror she had been through and Kim's unexpected arrival.

"Long story," Kim whispered. She took a good look at Alex and swallowed as she saw the state of her. There wasn't time to find her clothes so Kim slipped off her jacket and wrapped it around Alex's waist to protect her decency as she helped her slowly to her feet. Her heart broke as she watched Alex stagger and almost fall, in pain from her earlier injuries, dizzy from the tainted air and devastated from Keats's actions. All Kim wanted to do was to drop to her knees and weep for her but she had to get her out of the building before Keats made the great escape.

She held her jacket around Alex's waist and tried to support her physically for the long, slow ascent up the stairs. Once at the top she could hear angry yelling and the door knob rattling. The consequences when he found his way out were not something Kim wanted to consider but she knew she would have to face them sooner rather than later.

"_This way,"_ she said quietly as she led Alex out of the building by the back way. The relief as they emerged from the door only to be bathed on flashing blue lights was immense. "The ambulance is here," Kim breathed, "you'll be fine now, Ma'am."

Alex looked at Kim in horror as she delivered her into the hands of a paramedics.

"Kim?" she cried, "where are you going?"

Kim swallowed as her eyes turned back to the building.

"There's something I have to do," she whispered.

Alex's eyes widened.

"Come with me, Kim," she begged, "_please –"_

"_Kim!"_ from inside of the ambulance Kim heard Robin's voice calling her. She turned from the ambulance to the building and back again several times. She wanted desperately to jump in with them both, stay with them, hold them and cry her eyes out for them and everything they had been through. She wanted to sit with them, talk to them, be there for them every step of the way. But she knew there was one more thing that she had to do.

"Robin's in there," she whispered, "He'll look after you. And you look after him," she swallowed, "you'll both be fine now. You're safe."

Alex shook her head

"Please don't go," she whispered, "please come with me. I don't want to be alone…"

"_Kim!"_ Robin's voice called again.

Kim's heart snapped in two. She swallowed and flinched as she realised that she had no choice but to walk away. Her job was only half done.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, backing away and shaking her head, "I'm sorry, ma'am…. I'm sorry, Rob…"

"_Kim –"_ Alex stretched out her hand and cried out desperately, "_Kim!"_

But Kim had to shut out their frantic cries. They needed her, that was true, but in a way that they couldn't even have imagined her job really was only half done. Now came the hardest part of all.

It was time to face her future.

_**~xXx~**_

_**A/N: I wanted to just add that in no way did I take any decisions about this chapter lightly. I have been back and forth in my own mind about which was this was going to go but in the end I decided that I had to write it as it needed to be written as opposed to taking the easy way out. Don't think for a moment that any part of this gratuitous or used for shock value. This is not a subject I could ever take lightly, believe me. This chapter is one of the most painful things I've ever written. These actions are not without consequence. Thank you for reading. There is one more chapter and an epilogue to come.**_


	14. Chapter 13: Of Challenge and Change

**Chapter 13**

_Confusion reigns supreme._

That was the only thought going through Keats's brain, such as it was, as he prised the bucket from his backside and continued to rattle the door handle. What the _fuck_ was going _on?_ One minute his every dream had come true and it was the night of his life. The next he was in a dark, dank place with a bucket-bottom and a door that was refusing to open for him.

Which was more than could be said for Kim, who found the doors opening up before her once again.

That spooked her rather a lot. She had seen it happening for Gene way back on her first go around, and for Alex too. Hell, she'd even seen doors open for Simon on occasion, but to see them opening wide to allow _her_ through sent a shudder all through her body. The feeling was made so much worse by the knowledge that the doors were inviting her to step through and confront the man. The monster. The one who'd haunted her nightmares for almost a decade of her life.

As she stepped inside the chair finally gave up holding back Keats and the door opened. A wet, furious and dishevelled Keats stumbled out from within, panting breathlessly and glaring around him as though looking for something or someone to blame. However, never in a million years had he expected for his eyes to fall upon the person standing before him.

He had never felt an instance like it before in his life. All at once it felt very specifically as though the world ceased to turn. His heart flared like fire and his body seemed to stiffen on the spot. His jaw dropped although he never would have admitted it and quite instantaneously his stomach felt as though it flipped right over inside of him. As he stared at her face; her cold, callous, unyielding expression, something burst through from deep inside of him where it had stayed deeply hidden and whispered one word;

"_Kim."_

A momentary blink of humanity shone through his petrified expression before the monster overrode it and it felt as though that moment had never even happened.

Kim stared right back at him. It was funny, she thought to herself, but she had expected to be more scared of this moment. All the times she had thought about the moment she'd come face to face with him again – because she had never been able to shake the horrid, wretched thought that it was going to happen eventually – she had imagined herself crumbling under the weight of the memory of the torment and abuse that he had put her through, both back in 1995 and during her kidnapping on the barge.

Yet the reality couldn't have been any more different. As she stood there, her soaked clothes clinging to her undernourished frame, blonde crop flattened and make-up running she had never felt stronger, angrier or more determined to see a job through to the end.

_It was time to make him pay._

"_Kimberley,"_ that was more the tone she was used to. He glowered at her now as the shock began to wear off just a little. Brown eyes met blue. The darkest eyes met the brightest eyes. The darkest soul met its equal and opposite. And despite the expression that did not falter there was a part of Keats that shook inside. "It's been a long time, Kimberley," he took a step towards her. She wasn't moving. Why wasn't she moving? She was too scared, _that_ was it. She _had_ to be. There could be no other reason for her to be so still and silent. He tried to keep his resolve as he took another step. "Well well, who would have thought you would end up back here? Didn't your buddy Simon tell you not to play with the big boys any more? Out of the force, weren't you? '_He'll never find you that way',_ that's what he said, wasn't it?" he took another step. Why wasn't she running? Why wasn't she wavering? Why was her expression so cold, so calm? "But then," he raised an eyebrow, "I _did_ find you, didn't I? Well, my friend Mister Layton did. You should have known better than to rejoin."

He took another step closer and found himself gulping involuntarily. He stared at her and turned up the smirk, expecting for her to crumble before him but somehow it wasn't happening. He cleared his throat a little.

"And now you're back?" he said, raising an eyebrow, "what happened? Step a little too close to the edge of the road? Get a little too friendly with a man with a knife? That always seemed to be your weakness in the past, Kimberley." He sighed. "I hope you're not expecting to step right back into your old post. Because I doubt your old desk is still there. Well, I doubt the whole _department_ is still there." He noticed – finally – a flicker of emotion on her face. Well _that_ was a relief. This was no fun as it was. He needed her to respond to him. There was nothing worse than a blank face staring back in his direction when he was trying to provoke someone. "I hear a couple of little incidents occurred at Fenchurch East, you see," he continued. One more step and there he was, right before her, staring her in the eye. "What a shame. You turn up just as the building crumbles. Lucky penny you are, eh?" he gave a slightly bitter laugh and waited for her to respond properly but she was still as silent as before. His lip twitched. This wasn't going very well. In all the times he had imagined Kim returning, of all the times he had imagined confronting her and pursuing her she had always been emotional, tearful, in need of help. But she stared on ahead and said nothing, did nothing – felt nothing? Her coolness unnerved him.

"I see you took my style advice to heart," he tried a different approach, "after I gave you that trim." This time he _definitely_ saw an instance of fear flash across her face. He smirked inside. _Good_, "and you've gone back to the blonde too," he noted, "almost like you stepped right out of ninety five." He frowned critically at the streaks she had arrived in 1997 with in her hair; the bright red one and the black one. "Although I think you could do without this. You don't belong in a girl band, I've heard you on karaoke –"

He made the mistake of reaching out to touch her hair and as fast as anything her hand stretched out and slapped his away, causing him to raise his eyebrows and take a step back

"_It lives,"_ he mocked, "I thought for a moment you were dead, standing there with a face like stone."

"Shut the fuck up."

Kim's words were as cold, calm and measured as Keats had ever heard. It made him freeze and take notice.

"Finding your voice –" he began but she interrupted him again.

"I said shut the fuck up," she hissed.

"It took a while to find your voice," Keats raised an eyebrow, "and now you have I rather wish you would lose it again."

"You need to stop talking, _right_ now, she hissed.

Keats honestly cold not believe that she was talking to him in such a way. No one ever had before. No one had dared. He stared back at her, swallowed and drew in his breath.

"That's brave talk," he began, "considering the fact that I remember a little blonde girl who hung on my every word."

"Every _lie_ you mean?" Kim hissed.

Keats didn't know what to say. This was new. This was _awful_ and _new_. He tried to pull himself together as her unexpected words threatened to pick him apart.

"So what happened to her, then?" he asked, "what happened to Kim Stringer, the young lady who had beer in her veins?" He glowered at her. "I've seen you, Kimberley. I've watched you. Things have been different for me lately. I've seen what you've been doing, rotting away, pickling yourself every night. A right little female Gene and no mistake."

"_Got it in one,"_ Kim's teeth were clenched as she hissed her threat at Keats. He didn't understand what she meant and his expression waivered for a moment as she continued, "What happened to Kim Stringer?" she repeated, "I'll _tell_ you what happened to Kim Stringer. She made one mistake. She trusted a man who told he could get her home. She never made that mistake again. She spent eight years hiding from who she used to be. She spent _one_ year rediscovering herself. And then she spent months alone, adding layers and layers to her shell. And all of those things, those hard phases of her life, have led her to who she is right now. To who you see in front of you."

"And she speaks in the third person too," Keats tried to mock but the look on her face made him shudder inside.

"What I only see now," she continued, her voice devoid of emotion, "is that I _had_ to go through that. Because if I hadn't then I wouldn't be strong enough. I wouldn't be hard enough. I would be no match for you."

"_No one_ is strong enough to be my match," Keats hissed. In reply Kim reached into her pocket and pulled something from within. She opened it up and stared at it, reading the words herself before she turned it around and handed it to Keats. The moment he absorbed the words that faced him his stomach turned into a block of ice and he felt as though his legs were about to give way below him. "_Impossible_," he mumbled, blinking.

"It's true," Kim's voice shook for the first time as she watched his eyes rise from the object to focus on her again.

"This isn't fucking possible," he hissed, "this is _my_ station. Nobody has control but me. _No one_ is my equal. Anyone who tries is soon cut down to size."

"It's not me who's going to be cut down to size," Kim hissed, using his shock as the perfect opportunity to launch her fist at his crotch and leave him doubled over. He cried out in both pain and surprise, his head swirling with thoughts that were leaving him crazed and terrified.

"No one else walks in here with the same standing as me!" he cried, "this is my station! You don't stand a fucking chance!" he spluttered as he began to right himself but Kim grabbed a handful of his hair and pulled it hard.

"That's where you're wrong," she spat, "because you don't know who you're dealing with now. I'm not that scared little girl you once knew, desperate to get home. I've changed, Keats. I've been through too much. I'm too strong _not_ to be your equal now." She snatched back the object that brought him the worst news he'd ever received and tucked it away safely once again.

Keats's eyes flashed with fury.

_"No one_ is my equal," he repeated as he scrambled back to his feet.

"You really want to bet on that?" Kim hissed. The two of them stared one another in the eye, each daring the other to look away. "You've done enough damage, Keats. You're not top dog any more."

"Interesting turn of phrase considering you're trying to put yourself over as such a bitch." Keats sneered.

"I don't need to do that," Kim told him coldly, "I already am one."

"You think you have what it takes to go up against me?" Keats hissed, "You haven't got a fucking clue. You think you can just stand there and steal my power? Steal everything that makes me who I am without a second thought? You're wrong, Kimberley, because sooner or later the darkness is going to get you too." He stared her in the eye as she swallowed. "You might think you can stand up and brush away what it means to be a part of Fenchurch West but just you wait, Kimberley. Before you know it you'll be one too."

Kim felt cold.

"One what?" she whispered.

"Just another day of darkness plotted onto the calendar," hissed Keats, "you'll soon see."

Kim shook her head.

"You're wrong," she spat,

"Let's hear you say that a month from now," spat Keats.

"I don't care what I'm saying a month from now," Kim hissed, "I care what I'm saying today." Catching him unawares she threw a surprisingly hard and powerful punch into his stomach which winded him enough for her to follow it up with a knee to the bollocks.

As he dropped to the floor, howling with agony, she brought her heavy boot down hard over his hand and listened to him cry out in distress. "James _Arsehole_ Keats," she cried, "I am arresting you for the abduction and assault of Chief Inspector Robin Thomas, the abduction and sexual assault of DCI Alex Drake and for being a complete and total _bastard_ to everyone who has ever coe within fifty feet of your sorry arse!"

His scream died out abruptly as he bit hard on his lip to silence himself and she removed her boot from his hand, realising she might be taking it a step too far. _Shit,_ she wanted to teach him a lesson, not take lessons in how to _be_ him. She moved back a little as she watched him staring at her in silent shock and fury. It took a forever of silence for him to pull together enough sense to respond, his lip bleeding from sinking his own teeth so hard into his flesh.

"What," he breathed, "do you think you're doing? The charges won't stick, Kimberley. This building protects me."

Kim swallowed defiantly.

"Then," she whispered, "I suppose it will have to make a choice. Who's it going to ,listen to; you or me?"

"_You don't stand a fucking chance,"_ Keats hissed as he pulled himself up off the floor, "You step in here thinking you're little miss wonderful. So perfect."

Kim gave a fitful laugh at his words.

"_Perfect?"_ she cried, "Oh, no. I'm not perfect. I'm so far from perfect it's untrue. _Look_ at me, Keats, I'm every bit as flawed as you are," she stared him in the eye. "Which is what makes me so dangerous to you." She stared at him, bedraggled, bleeding, bruised. Suddenly she wondered exactly why he held so much power. He looked like a scared little brat. Something started to build inside of her. It was a strange feeling she couldn't explain. Energy. Strength. _Power_. She drew in her breath and with one last stare she spun around and walked out of the building. She had things to do. And listening to Keats was not one of them. He could say whatever he liked and his station could protect him all it wanted but this time it wasn't going to wash.

Gene, Alex, Simon, Robin – the fact was that none of them hated Keats quite as much as Kim. And that put her in the strongest position to fight him every step of the way.

X

Keats's expression cycled through emotions like a bored kid flicking through the channels on a TV set. One after another they flashed by – anger, shock, fear, hatred – the list went on.

But quite suddenly it stopped on an emotion that he wasn't used to feeling. Not that he was used to feeling very much at all.

"_Kim –"_

He whispered her name under his breath, horrified that the human side had made a reappearance after all that time. It had been a year since he'd allowed that side out. Not since the day that Kim left Gene's world for the first time had the man broken through past the monster. But he was there now, as clear as day.

Very quickly the dark side swallowed him up again as Keats's face contorted into a ball of agony and he let forth a scream that sounded throughout the station. The agony he felt inside was crushing him. This was supposed to have been the night he took all the glory – his rival station was in pieces, there were bodies all over the place, he had both Robin and Alex in his clutches and _Little Jimbo_ was enjoying his first outing for a whole fucking year.

Then the tables turned.

In fact, a _great big fucking table_ turned and fell squarely on his head.

His whole life… his station… his power… it wasn't truly his anymore. Suddenly his place and his position were both in doubt.

But what was never in doubt was his darkness. And with that darkness he was going to fight his interloper every step of the way.

_However much he wanted her._

Man and monster both felt their world crumbling beneath them.

It was not Keats's domain any longer.

**The End**

**~xXx~**

_**A/N: Wow… I did say this was only going to be a short fic… I had no idea how much I was going to love writing it though. I have seriously not enjoyed writing anything this much since Dead Man Walking. Thank you so, so much to everyone who has read and even bigger thanks to those who have reviewed – you are really awesome and I can't thank you enough for following still.**_

_**The epilogue will be up tomorrow – along with an important announcement – and then a new story begins at the weekend**_


	15. Epilogue: Of Endings and Beginnings

**Epilogue**

"Excuse me?"

Kim felt a little awkward even being there. She knew it wasn't a good idea for many, many reasons but now that she had brought both Alex and Robin out of Fenchurch West and seen them taken to safety her mind had started to worry about another face; one she used to know so well, one to whom she'd once been so close. The one she'd spent a year calling her best friend.

"Yes?" the doctor turned around looking slightly annoyed at the interruption.

"Could you please give me an update on the condition of Simon Shoebury?" Kim asked, her voice wavering as she tried to stay professional and neutral.

"I'm sorry, unless you're family I can't really speak to you right now," the doctor said and with a sigh Kim pulled out her ID.

"I'm a detective chief inspector," she said, "This was a bombing. It's my duty to find out how the casualties are doing."

That wasn't necessarily true but the doctor didn't have to know that. He sighed a little and shuffled on the spot.

"Simon is in surgery at this moment," he said, "the surgery is taking longer than expected, there was more bleeding on the brain than we were anticipating and it took some time to identify where it was coming from. He has significant swelling and we are going to have to remove a piece of his skull while the swelling abates to give him the best possible chance of recovery."

Kim flinched. It all sounded about as grotesque as the documentary about DI March and the Nick Nailer cut-out.

"_Shit,"_ she whispered.

"I'm sorry to rush off but I need to update his father about his condition," the doctor said.

"Fa- _ohhh_," Kim nodded. She'd almost forgotten about the bizarre news that had come from the genetic testing. She wondered how Gene was coping with the news that he had a son, but as she stepped slowly behind the doctor and watched him walk around the corner she could see from the look on Gene's face that he was coping better with the thought of having a son than he was with the idea of _losing_ him. "_Shit_," she bit her lip. She wondered whether Gene had been told about Alex yet. How the hell would anyone even approach that? _'Excuse me sir, I am sorry to call you away from your vigil outside the operating theatre as your best friend and only son undergoes surgery but your fiancée has been abducted ad assaulted by your arch-nemesis in your absence.'_

It made Kim want to scream inside. How could one man cause so much horror? So much pain?

She found herself passing through corridor after corridor, just trying to walk her anger out. She had been too late to stop Keats. He'd destroyed the station and destroyed both Robin and Alex's lives in one way too. There were the dead, the injured and those who would never be the same again. it made her blood boil. At least she knew she was in place now to stop this from ever happening again. She would stay true to her promise. Half of that power was hers now and he would never be able to exact the same hold over the world as he'd been doing. She was going to keep him under the thumb, cut him down to size and watch every single step that he took. Jim Keats was not going to know what hit him - aside, of course, from a chair and Kim's fists.

"_Kim?"_

_Shit._

Kim was torn between speeding up and just getting the hell out of there or stopping and turning around. In the end she did neither at first, just carried on walking as though nothing had happened but the voice came again.

"Kim… oh my _god –"_

There was no ignoring it the second time. She knew that she had no choice. She stopped walking and slowly turned around to find Robin behind her, coming toward her as fast as he physically could which for Robin wasn't very fast at all because of the injuries that were hampering him. Kim felt panic surging through her body. _Quick in, quick out_ – that's all her visit was supposed to have been. She'd thought she would be safe – she was well away from casualty, how the hell could she have known Robin would have already been seen?

"_Rob,"_ she could feel her heart racing away inside her chest, "What's going on? Why aren't you in bed?"

Robin didn't seem to care less about bed.

"I've been checked over," he said.

"Your head," Kim swallowed nervously as he came closer, "you surely have to stay in for observation at least."

"They can't make me stay," Robin told her, "I… _someone_ had to be with Alex while she's waiting to be seen."

Kim felt her racing heart double its speed.

"Alex?" she whispered.

She felt as though she was caught in the middle of a nightmare. She couldn't see them right then, she just _couldn't_ –

But at the sound of her own name Alex emerged from a doorway, a hospital smock replacing the clothes that Keats had ruined or removed.

"_Kim,"_ a wave of relief and amazement washed over her tortured expression as she began to come closer but Kim took a step back.

"I have to go," she said quickly but found Robin's arms reaching for her and for the second that she let him hold her the sensation of them wrapped around her body was the most amazing, uplifting and breath-taking thing that she had ever felt. If she was honest she wanted to stay there forever, feeling him hug her, knowing that she was back with him, being right by his side. The day that she lost him was the day her heart and her soul died. She had never believed that she would be able to see him again, let alone feel his arms around her. The love she felt for Robin went beyond anything she'd thought possible. And as he held her tightly and whispered to her how much he loved her too she knew that the feeling was mutual.

And yet, it wasn't enough.

"Robin, no," she whispered as she pulled away leaving him confused and hurt as he stared at her questioningly.

"Kim, it's OK," he whispered, "I'm OK. You _saved_ me. And whatever happened… however you got here…" he took a deep breath, not knowing quite how to finish that sentence. '_Sorry you died'?_ it didn't seem enough. He licked his dry lips and cleared his throat. "Kim, I love you so much. And I thought we'd never be together again. I can't… can't even begin to say…"

"Don't, Rob," Kim whispered.

Robin stared at her feeling a heavy sensation in his chest as she stepped back again.

"What?" he asked with a disbelieving laugh.

"I said _don't,"_ she whispered.

"Don't what?" Robin frowned, "hold you? _Love_ you? Tell you how much I _missed_ you?"

To his utter shock and dismay Kim's reply was the one thing he hadn't expected

"_All of the above,"_ she breathed.

Alex felt a shudder of anxiety down her spine.

"Kim, what's wrong?" she said quietly as she stepped forward while Robin reached out to hold Kim again.

"Kim, it's OK," he said quietly, "I know that… to be here…. Something awful must have happened… I can't even begin to tell you how much I wish you hadn't had to go through whatever you've had to go through. But… _shit_… you're _here_," he couldn't fight the smile, "Kimmy, you're here, and I've dreamed of this –"

His arms reached around her again but she had to keep her resolve.

"Let go of me, Rob," she whispered.

"Kim, I _love_ you."

"You mustn't."

Those words were the last thing Robin had expected and they chilled him to the core. He froze, his arms still around her shivering body as he whispered;

"What?"

Kim swallowed, feeling both sets of eyes upon her.

"You can't love me," she whispered, "because I'm not who you think I am. Not any more."

"Kim, we've both changed while we've been apart," Robin whispered shakily, "it's only natural. I've been fucking…. Fucking _miserable_… I've not been myself, and you must have been through _hell_." He looked at her seriously, "But you're here now, Kim. We're together again. Everything will be alright now."

Kim broke inside.

"No it _won't!"_ she cried, stepping back and pushing him away, "it _won't_ be OK! It's never going to be OK so you have to leave me _alone!"_

"Kim?" Alex's sense of anxiety rose as she walked closer and stopped by Robin's side, "what do you mean?"

"Just come home with me," Robin whispered tearfully, "I've waited _months_ for this. Just let me hold you… be with you…"

Kim gulped back the tears that were on the edge of overflowing.

"Rob," she whispered, "I can't… you don't understand…"

"Don't understand what?" Robin demanded. He stared at her, "You're scaring me, Kim."

Alex's face was dark and anxious.

"What is it. Kim?" she whispered.

Kim stared back at them, the eyes of the two people who meant more to her than anyone, staring back, waiting for an explanation, waiting for her to change her mind, waiting for her to just be herself again. But she couldn't be herself. She'd given that person up. She'd had to.

"_I can't…"_ she whispered.

"I don't understand," A tear fell from Robin's eyes as he stared at her, "what did I do?"

"Nothing, Rob," she whispered, "it's not you."

"Then what?" he waited but she looked frozen. "Come on, Kim, _please_ – just talk to me." He swallowed, "you're breaking my heart in two,"

Kim swallowed as she stared back. The words caught in her throat. She couldn't say them, she just couldn't say them out loud. Instead she slowly reached into her pocket and, with a shaking hand, she pulled out her arrest warrant. Trembling, she opened it up and, hiding her face behind her arm so that she wouldn't have to see their faces, she turned it around slowly for them to read.

The effect was immediate.

"_Oh Kim,"_ Alex's voice was quieter than Kim had ever heard it. It was laden with emotion. Despite her attempt at blocking them with her arm Kim couldn't stop herself from looking as Alex's lip wavered and her eyes began to glisten with tears.

"Kim," Robin's voice was barely a whisper, "Kim, _no_ – that's a mistake." He tore his eyes from the warrant and met her stare. "Tell me it isn't true."

Her hand shaking wildly, the warrant juddering as she pulled it back from their view, Kim's lips stayed closed as she fought to stop herself from crying. She swallowed as she glanced once more at the wording for herself;

_DCI K. Stringer, Fenchurch West CID_

Alex trembled as she stared at her.

"_There's only one way in to Fenchurch West,"_ she whispered.

Kim could only stare back, her teeth gripping her lower lip to bite back the tears that weren't really listening. Her silence only went to confirm what Alex already knew.

"Oh Kim… please tell me you… you didn't…. please say it isn't so…"

Kim swallowed hard and forced herself to speak.

"I had to Ma'am," she breathed fitfully, "I _saw_ things… and it was… it was the only way…"

The full realisation hit Robin like a bullet in the head.

"Kim," he whispered, "please don't tell me you…."

"I _had_ to, Kim whispered, "I knew you needed me… I had to get here somehow."

A terrible dream from some weeks ago forced its way back into Alex's mind.

"I saw you too, Kim," she whispered, "y-you took… a… a leap of faith."

Kim's head drooped and her eyes fixed on the floor as Robin reeled with horror at the realisation of the step Kim had taken to be there. His mouth dropped open and he looked from Kim to Alex, silently begging for someone to tell him that he was wrong. When no one said any such thing he stared at Kim and reached to touch her.

"But we can get you out of there though," he whispered, "Right? We'll get the super to –"

"Rob, there's no way out," Kim whispered.

"Then someone's got to come in –

"And there's no way in," Kim told him insistently, "apart from the way I took. Dark death. Suicide. Drugs. Rob…. I'm sorry… even if you could… you mustn't. Or everything I've done… it would all be for nothing."

"What do you mean?" Robin swallowed, terrified of the answer.

Kim closed her eyes.

"Someone… someone has to control him," she whispered, "someone has to steal that power away from him. And it has to be me."

"There has to be another way –" Alex stepped forward but Kim moved back.

"No, ma'am, _please_," she begged, "please don't make this any harder." She swallowed as the tears fell freely now. "You know what happened tonight. He's out of control. I need… need to _be_ there… to _stop_ him." She turned to Robin whose face was as white as flour and whose eyes were spilling over every bit as much as her own.

"You can't, Kim," he whispered as he started to tremble, "I need you."

Kim nodded.

"Yes, Rob, you do," she whispered, "but not in the way you imagine." She gave in to the tears as she whispered, "It's… it's for your own safety, Rob. You, Alex… _everyone_." She backed away, shaking her head, the pain of the goodbye so soon after being reunited too painful to bear. "_I'm sorry,"_ she whispered, "I'm _so_ sorry…."

She couldn't stand it any longer. She knew that if she stayed there for one more moment, looked into either of their faces for another second, that she was going to lose her resolve and she didn't dare let that happen. She'd come too far and sacrificed too much to step in and then leave them in danger once again. She was there for a reason. She had to see it through.

"_Kim!"_ Robin's voice cut like a shard of glass through the heart. She couldn't turn around. Couldn't face him. Couldn't look into his eyes one more time. "Kim, _wait!"_ she began to speed up as she heard him trying to follow her hampered by his injuries. "_Kim!_ Don't do this, Kim! I _love_ you! Please Kim, please, come back! I _need_ you! I _love_ you, Kim! I _love you! Kim! KIM!"_

With tears falling freely and her sobs becoming audible and raw, Kim ran from the hospital and out into the cold, early morning air. She collapsed against the wall in a fit of tears that felt as though they would never end. She knew that she had left two people devastated back in that building. The look on Robin's face would haunt every nightmare for the rest of her life. But she knew that she had done the right thing, because it was her purpose.

To protect them.

"_Shit."_

All at once the full meaning of her actions struck her like a blow to the head and she slid to the ground; exhausted, tearful, devastated. Her life was no longer her own. The rest of her existence was there to keep another under control.

She thought hearing the news that Robin had died was the worst moment of her life, but it wasn't.

Walking away from him had overtaken it in a heartbeat.

The tears felt as though they were going to flow forever.

~xXx~

The walk back to Fenchurch West was long, tiring but exactly what Kim needed. Time alone with her thoughts. Unfortunately most of her thoughts so far had been _'Oh shit'_. She felt numb to a degree. The pain of walking away from them all had been stinging her like nettles to bare skin. _Simon, Gene, Alex – Robin._

She shook her head bitterly as she thought about the hurt on his face. If only he could see. If only he could _understand_.

She'd made the sacrifice and now she was trapped. There was nowhere else to go.

As she slumped exhaustedly through the car park a vehicle caught her eye to one side of the grounds.

"_The Fiat,"_ she whispered.

It had disappeared from canal Street the night before and shed barely had time to even give a second thought to where it had gone or what had happened to it, but here it was, in what she presumed must be her very own parking bay. "Alright," she growled, "I get the message. I'm stuck here. Thanks for rubbing it in."

She walked slowly into the building as the sun rose outside. In the space of mere hours everything had changed. The water from the sprinklers had gone as though it had never fallen and any sign of the unrest from the night before had all but vanished. She felt her insides flip-flop as her eyes fell upon a doorway. There was a brand new sign pinned upon on it;

_DCI Kim Stringer_

It hadn't been there a few hours earlier.

"_Shit," _she whispered.

As she slowly walked towards it the door opened and she caught her breath. There was no doubt in her mind that the station had well and truly accepted her. Was she Keats's equal? She could only do her best to ensure that was true.

Her heart sank as she walked inside. The clock on the wall said it was just before seven in the morning. She'd arrived around 2. She asked herself silently_, how long does it take for a world to change? How long does it take to turn reality on its head?_

Apparently not as long as you'd think.

"Apparently," whispered Kim as she stared at the desk, "it takes five hours."

She slowly lifted the name bar and her stomach sank. It wasn't as though she did not know what she was getting into but now that the storm had calmed reality was biting hard. All that she had been through in the last few hours played through her head like a horror movie on repeat but it was the look on his face as she'd turned and walked away that slowly killed her inside.

One tear escaped from the corner of her eye and ran all the way down her cheek until it fell onto the name bar in her hands.

_"I had to do it,"_ she whispered, "_it was for the best."_

So why did she feel like her heart had been ripped from her chest and thrown into the flames?

There was a mirror propped on the filing cabinet and she caught sight of her reflection for the first time. Her hair and make-up had fixed itself as she'd walked. _Great_. More normal things to take on board. She slowly reached up and touched the coloured streaks in the side of her crop. That was going to take some getting used to. Her eyes turned downward to her feet, swathed in clunky boots. They kept her down. They kept her on her feet. They brought gravity to the situation.

"_I think,"_ she whispered, "_it's time."_

~xXx~

The approaching footsteps were so heavy and clunky that everyone in the office turned to look.

The buckles on the side of the black, leather boots rattled as the footsteps came closer and stopped halfway through the office. Her boots were dark. The clothes draped around her body were dark. But darkest of all was the look on her face. Every person in that office felt a shudder travel down their spine. Not one of them found the guts to open their mouth and ask who she was or what she was doing there. None of them knew her - but she seemed to know them.

The office stared on in silence for what felt like an ice age until finally a young DC named Michael Dillion got to his feet, swallowed nervously and asked;

"Can I help you?"

The darkest of stares turned onto him.

"No," she said.

Dillion looked at her nervously.

"Then," he began, "can I ask who you are?"

Her expression was cold and unemotional.

"You'll find out soon enough."

"You should at least tell us what you're here for," Dillion felt his anxiety rising as he spoke, "what is the purpose of your visit?"

She caught him in her glare; cold, hard. _Intense_. The corners of her mouth moved into something resembling a smile that somehow wasn't quite there as she delivered her answer; four words that changed the course of the world and those who thrived within it.

_"To fuck shit up,"_ was all Kim had to say.

**~xXx~**

**The End – To be Continued**

**~xXx~**

_**A/N: It's funny, for the fic that was always intended to be the shortest it's felt like the most intense by far. I do know the tone of this one was dark, it was always intended to be, and I know that's not everyone's cup of tea so first of all thank you so much to everyone who has read, and massive thanks and giant hugs to those who have reviewed – Jessica and Charlotte, you've been amazing; Noemi, MrsJackHarkness, Sillivan and sash queen of the jungle thank you so much. And Ranty, between your threats of beard foursomes and chapter-demanding you kept me going, stopped me slacking and also gave me the push to stick to my vision for the story when I worried about making it too dark. You've been amazing as always x**_

_**I checked my total word count on FFnet a new days ago and it stands at just under 2 millionnwords. Two million fucking words. I sort of sat and stared at it in disbelief for a while. That doesn't even include the 3 stories on Fictionpress that belong in the series. Writing these fics has really taken over my life, in more ways than one. It's brought me in touch with people I am forever grateful for meeting. It's inspired me to try different things that I'd never have been brave enough to try before. It's helped me through some rough times. It's even inspired me in my piercings and tattoos (thanks, Kim!)**_

_**But most of all, what started as a one-shot to deal with things I didn't like about the way Ashes to Ashes ended has become a 'thing' in its own right. I feel bad for saying this but I can't even watch the series any more because there's no Simon or Robin or Kim and it's just not... it's not the same. How stupid is that?**_

_**A one shot became a fic, which became the start of a trilogy which I decided to extend for 'one more story' and then suddenly I hit this point where I could see it just going on forever. And it really could. I had everything planned out to the millennium but had at least 3 different ways of taking it beyond that and any of the would have been viable because I love writing these so much that stopping will break my heart.**_

_**But one day, I'm going to have to.**_

_**I've gone back and forth on this so many times but I finally made the decision to stick with how I had seen things in my mind.**_

_**The final fic in this series will be set just after the Millennium and I am planning to let the end coincide with the 5**__**th**__** anniversary of the last episode of Ashes to Ashes.**_

_**The final chapter will go up on Thursday 21**__**st**__** May 2015.**_

_**I wanted to say this now so that those of you who have come along with my flics are aware that they do have an end point. Their life is finite. And although afterwards I might continue side fics (like Kim's story) or do missing scenes or spin-offs the main series of fics will come to an end in May 2015 – or to put it another way, January 2000.**_

_**That's still a long way off. I'm about halfway through the lifetime of this series. How many of you will stick it through to the end I have no idea, you have the patience of saints and deserve medals, fishy biscuits and complementary copies of 50 Shades of Beard for sticking with it this far! But, yeah, it's not going to go on forever. It has an end point and I feel weird and sad about setting that in stone but there you go – that's what I'm working towards.**_

_**The next story will begin over the weekend. It will start dark and became brighter and hopeful as the story progresses. I hope you'll stick with it – and just in case anyone needed depressing further then check out the Misty's OCs tag on my tumblr (xxmisty) for an illustration for the epilogue…. *cries* I'll be putting a link straight to that tag on my profile too, leading to all my fic illustrations and character portraits!**_

_**I'm off to buy tissues!**_


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